#the next few posts wil go back and forth a bit

[hellcifrogs]

NaruFox AU Sannin’s Arc pt 14: The new Hokage(s)!! And Tsunade has a small request.

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[mcyt-peach]

Hii! What would it be like (as is what would mcyts tweet) if you came out as ftm trans?

karl, wilbur and tommy tweeting about ftm trans!reader

⋆｡˚ summary: when their friend and fellow streamer comes out on social media, karl, wilbur and tommy decide to show their support

⋆｡˚ including: cc!karl, cc!wilbur and cc!tommy

⋆｡˚ warnings: reader uses he/him pronouns, reader is trans ftm (female to male)

⋆｡˚ note: this was a bit shorter because I'm pretty busy at the moment but I hope y'all still like it

Karl

Karl wasn’t surprised in the slightest when you came out on your twitter, finally showing off who you truly were

he’d been going back and forth with you over the past few days about the topic, trying to offer support and calm our nerves over the life changing moment of coming out

he had even stayed up with you the night before you posted, drafting, redrafting, checking grammar and carefully choosing each and every word

quickly unlocking his phone and pulling up your tweet, he was ecstatic to see the throngs of people expressing their support in comments

“I LOVE YOU SO MUCH AND YOU’RE THE BRAVEST PERSON I KNOW!!! <3”

the capitalization, excessive number of exclamation points, as well as the emojis he tacked on after his original reply were his way of lifting your mood through an undoubtedly exhausting time

still, if the way you liked every picture he put up of him and you, in your new haircut and clothes, he was pretty sure you felt on top of the world

Wilbur

Wilbur had been anticipating your tweet, with you having come out to him earlier in the month

he had no trouble using your preferred pronouns and respected your desire to keep it from the public until you felt comfortable

during streams, he simply referred to you by your stream handle and didn’t tolerate any comments from chat that could cause you to feel uncomfortable

but here you were, sharing everything you had discovered about yourself with your fanbase and hoping for an understanding response

despite all the love from your followers, he was sure you were wracked with nerves and made a mental note to check up on you when everything had settled

being able to finally use the name he’d been calling you in private for months felt liberating and he couldn’t help but join in with the masses supporting you

“You’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met and if you ever need some fashion advice man to man, I’ll be waiting to pick a fit for you”

you would, of course, respond with pictures of Quackity in a green beret and blue jacket, along with a teasing “I think I’m good”

Tommy

Tommy’s inconsistent use of twitter meant he missed your original coming out tweet, something he still denies to this day

only when the few people he has notifications on for began retweeting and responding to you did he realize what he had missed

his notifications were blown up by a well-meaning Tubbo and a very sarcastic Ranboo telling him to get off his ass and use his crazy personality to show his undying support

he was frantic to make any and all comments about how proud he was, even going as far as to respond on every single alt account he’d ever created

every frenzied retweet read like that of a tween from the early 2010’s, wrought with spelling errors and incomprehensible hashtags

“YOUER MY FAV BROTHER BUT SONT TELL WIL #WELCOMETOTHEBOYS”

the next day, you got a call from Tommy asking if he should do a “getting a tattoo with my brothers” video, to which you threatened to tell Wilbur about until he gave up

[corysmiles]

Caught (Again) Part 3.

Friendly Giant AU

part 1

part 2

cw//language, mentions of fatal vore (this part is extremely vague and short)

(Also I’m so sorry this is longer than the things I usually post but I hope you like it 💛)

———————————

“Wilbur please eat your food,” Phil hummed from across the table.

It had only been a couple hours since Wilbur woke up, and he was already becoming a problem. The moment his eyes opened he was yelling for help. They tried to calm him down but the hysteric man wouldn’t stop shouting about the giant.

“Dad stop fucking ignoring me! I know i saw-“

“Wilbur!” Phil snapped, “Please, eat your food. We’ll discuss this later, but you need to eat.”

Techno took a spoonful of the soup and nudged it towards Wilbur’s face. As soon as it touched his lips Wil sputtered and slapped it out of the older man’s hand. The spoon hit the table with a hard thud, interrupting the uncomfortable silence.

“Fucking stop it, I’m not a child!” Wilbur gasped.

Techno picked the spoon back up and huffed, “You’re really acting like it.”

Wilbur shot Techno a dangerous glare and shoved the soup bowl away from him. It sloshed out onto the table, spilling onto WIlbur’s lap.

“Dad the towns in trouble! It knows where we-“

Wilbur couldn’t even finish his sentence before a spoonful of soup was forcefully shoved into his mouth by Techno. Wil coughed and hit his chest but swallowed it down.

“Will I love you I really do, but you’re probably concussed,” Phil said softly, “And we’d know if there was a giant I promise. That’s our job. If the boys had been with a giant they would be dead, and look at them, not dead.”

Wilbur shot a dangerous glance at Tubbo and Tommy who just sat in silence at the other end of the table. Tommy’s face lit up with a sly smile as he turned to face their angered brother.

“I don’t know how they’re not dead. But I KNOW what I saw,” Wilbur snarled.

“You’re being stupid big man,” Tommy scoffed, “Of course theres no giant we don’t have a death wish.”

“Oh shut the fuck up Tommy,” Wilbur snapped.

“Don’t talk to your brother like that,” Phil scolded, “but Wil is right mate. Going into the forest was stupid of you two, you basically did have a death wish...I really don’t believe you two found a giant, but if one actually did find you, we’d be holding a funeral right now.”

Tubbo looked up at Phil with a mouthful of soup and nodded.

“You know how dangerous they are,” Phil said, “They aren’t people. A giant would slaughter you like pigs and not have a second thought.”

“Tell me more dad I’m intrigued,” Tommy grinned.

Phil glared at Tommy and sighed, “It’s not a joke Tommy. Giants are a serious danger, all we are to them is food.”

“Mhm,” Techno hummed.

“Giants are the closest things to the devil you’ll ever meet.”

“Mhm,” Phil agreed, “They wouldn’t even hesitate to eat kids like you, you’re like a fucking snack to them.”

Tubbo stared down at his soup while Tommy continued to egg on their father. The claims he made about giants got more and more extreme...but at least the soup tasted good.

“Can we please stop talking about this,” Wilbur snapped after a couple minutes. His posture was stiff, and the staring contest he had with their father was thick with tension. It didn’t last long though before Phil reluctantly gave up and motioned for him to eat more.

“I’m gonna uh..I’m actually gonna go to sleep now I’m pretty tired,” Tubbo exclaimed after a few minutes of silence. Tommy grabbed at his arm to get him to stay but Tubbo was already gone.

As soon as Tubbo got to his room he dropped down against the wall and pulled his legs to his chest. A deep breath cleared his mind.

At least Ranboo was okay, he thought. And Tommy was doing a good job of convincing Wilbur nothing happened. Even though Tubbo felt a bit guilty over lying to their brother, if it meant Ranboo was safe it would have to happen.

He would never forgive himself if he was the reason Ranboo got caught.

After an hour the door to his room slowly creaked open as Tommy entered.

“You feeling alright big man?” Tommy asked as he sat down beside Tubbo.

Tubbo sighed and leaned his head against his brother’s shoulder. He was thankful for Tommy’s help but it was still overwhelming.

“Yeah,” Tubbo whispered, “Just anxious...we were so close to being caught.”

A gentle hand rubbed against Tubbo’s back while he talked.

“Try not to worry about it,” Tommy sighed, “I’ll deal with Wilbur, and dad and Techno don’t suspect anything. It’s all okay...Are you gonna visit him tonight?”

Tubbo stared at the floor for a few seconds, just letting his eyes follow the natural grain of the wood. It was a habit he’d had since he was a kid. He used to make stories out of all the shapes and pictures he found hidden in the wood, but now all he could find in the grains were reminders of Ranboo- his eyes, his tail, his awful fishing rod.

“Yeah, I think I should,” Tubbo sighed, “He’s probably so worried right now.”

Tommy hummed beside him in agreement. The hand on his back pulled him closer against his brother’s side.

“Yeah, wouldnt wanna make Boob anymore anxious than he already is,” he smiled, “I’ll go with you- to make sure nothing happens of course. Wouldn’t want a giant to mercilessly kill you.”

Tubbo snorted and punched Tommy’s side, “I hope he slaughters you.”

“And eats me too right?”

“Obviously,” Tubbo snorted, “Like a snack.”

After a few hours when they were sure the rest of their family was asleep, Tubbo carefully cracked open their window letting them both jump out onto the grass below. It was still squishy from the morning rain, but further out in the forest it would hopefully be dry. The thick tree tops could be thanked for that.

Tubbo and Tommy got all the way to the walls with no issue. One at a time they climbed up the small ladder on the side until they reached the top. Tubbo sent his brother a grin before hopping off onto the pile of leaves they’d set up below.

Tubbo thought it was strange looking back at the walls. From the other side they looked so small, especially compared to the giant he actually did know...it was a good thing Ranboo had no intentions of getting into town. Or hurting anyone.

After a few seconds he was startled out of his thoughts by the thud of Tommy landing beside him.

Tommy grabbed his wrist as started to lead them forward. But they didn’t get very far before a heavy weight tackled into them from the darkness.

“Fuck!?” Tommy yelped as the boys were slammed onto the ground.

Tubbo desperately tried to push off whatever monster was attacking them until a familiar voice grunted in pain.

“Wilbur!?” Tubbo asked incredulously.

When the weight finally got off of them they were met by a very very angry looking Wilbur. His head was still bandaged from where Tubbo had hit him, but apparently he was fine enough to be up and moving.

“Where the fuck are you two going?” he growled.

Tommy brushed the dirt off his shirt and glared at their older brother.

“What the fuck-“

“No no no, what the fuck are you two doing? Are you fucking idiots?” Wilbur asked.

Tommy sighed and grabbed Wilbur’s wrist. His soft placating smile was all Tubbo needed to know what would happen next. It was his lying smile.

“Jeez Wil calm down. We followed you out here, are you lost dude? Are you ok-“

Wilbur slapped Tommy’s hand away with a shout, “I’m fucking fine, stop treating me like I’ve lost my mind! Now you’ve got two fucking minutes to tell me what’s going on or I’m telling dad you were out here again.”

“Not like he’d believe it,” Tommy snapped back.

Wilbur’s glare hardened as he marched forward, his finger pointed at Tommy’s chest.

“Oh so you fucking admit you’ve been lying to me, Huh? Really nice of you,” he snarled.

“Hey hey stop it!” Tubbo shouted. Immediately Wilbur’s head shot towards him with a deep frown. His finger still pressed against Tommy’s chest.

“You fucking too,” Wilbur growled, marching towards Tubbo, “Why are you out here what the fuck is wrong with you, I expect you to be smarter at least!”

“Hey!” Tommy snapped.

Wilbur shushed Tommy with a hand and glared back down at Tubbo. Even as sickly as he looked he was still intimidating, and Tubbo didn’t think he’d ever seen Wilbur that angry before.

“Tubbo you take me where you were going...or I tell dad,” he said slowly, “If you’re going to leave anyway I’m going too.”

Tubbo stared into the older man’s eyes and saw the liquid fear starting to swirl inside of them. Wilbur was angry but...there was more to it. It made sense given how often he had nightmares about the giant that had gotten into town. Of course, he’d be afraid of seeing another one.

“Tubbo let’s just take him home we can-“

“No,” Tubbo interrupted, his eyes didn’t leave Wilbur’s.

“No...he can come Tommy,” he said.

Immediately Tommy gasped in confusion and shoved Tubbo’s shoulder.

“What the fuck are you talking about you can’t just-“

“Tommy.”

“Tubbo it’s not safe it’s not-“

“Tommy.”

“Do you even care about him, what the-“

“Tommy!” Tubbo shouted.

Tommy’s eyes hardened into ice as he stared at Tubbo. But Tubbo knew what he needed to do.

“You can come Wilbur,” Tubbo said slowly.

Wilbur blinked, seemingly confused by how fast he had won, and nodded at Tubbo. He straightened his posture but his eyebrows still furrowed anxiously.

“Let’s go then.”

The three walked through the forest in a thick silence. Tubbo lead the group while Tommy walked behind with Wilbur. The previously furious man now just seemed terrified. His eyes flicked back and forth anxiously, and every broken branch or gust of wind made him flinch. Tubbo was sure that if he even said the man’s name he’d bolt the other direction.

“How long until we get there?” Wilbur asked.

Tubbo turned back to him and shrugged earning a glare from Wilbur.

“We’re almost there,” Tubbo hummed, “You should know, you’ve been here already haven’t you?”

Wilbur paused in his steps. The white noise of crickets and birds filled the silence.

“It was real...” Wilbur whispered. His voice so thin it almost blended into the sound of the wind.

Tommy’s eyes darted to Tubbo sending him a silent warning- he had to be careful. But they’d already gotten that far.

Tubbo locked eyes with his older brother and nodded. Immediately, Wilbur’s mouth squeezed shut, and for a moment Tubbo feared he would run until thankfully he fell back in line with the group.

After a few minutes they were at the entrance to the den. The warm air from inside washed over Tubbo like a comfortable blanket or a hug, but Wilbur didn’t seem as pleased. He could almost see the fear radiating off of Wilbur in waves as he stared into the dark cave.

“It’s safe,” Tubbo muttered, gently resting his hand on Wilbur’s shoulder.

Wilbur nodded and swallowed, letting himself be guided in by his younger brothers. Every step was torturously slow though since he kept having to stop to collect himself.

“We’re almost there Wil,” Tommy whispered at the fourth stop. He laid an arm around his brother’s shoulder and waited patiently until he stood back up, ready to walk again.

When they turned around the next corner the tunnel lit up- they were close now. Tubbo’s feet sped up like he was on autopilot and he had to force himself from running through the rest of the tangled pathways.

It wasn’t long before a familiar booming voice echoed through the last tunnel.

“Tubbo?”

Immediately a gasp escaped Wilbur. Tubbo turned to his brother who looked like he was about to pass out- his whole body stood deathly still and his eyes looked like they were a second away from rolling to the back of his head.

“What...” Wilbur heaved.

Tommy motioned for Tubbo to go on and sighed, “I’ll stay with him until he’s ready.”

Tubbo nodded and walked the rest of the way into the large cavern where Ranboo was curled up next to Michael. Meanwhile Tommy’s cow Henry slept peacefully against the stone wall of the den.

“Hey Boo,” Tubbo grinned.

As soon as the red and green eyes met his own they beamed with excitement. Behind Ranboo his giant tail thumped up and down happily.

“Wheres Tommy?” Ranboo asked.

Tubbo walked up to his friend and leaned against his giant arm. His body sunk into the soft fur and he could already feel the feint vibrations of a purr.

Tubbo took a deep breath and rubbed his hand into the giant’s fur, “He’s uh...well we have a guest?”

Ranboo tilted his head at the human before a loud gasp came from the other side of the den. Standing next to Tommy in the entrance to the cavern was Wilbur, and he looked horrified.

“You...it-“ Wilbur froze, “Oh my god.”

Wilbur’s shifted away, but before he could run Tommy grabbed his arm and yanked him forward.

“Fuck! Let me go,” Wilbur yelled, “Let me go please!”

Tommy shushed his brother while Ranboo stared wide-eyed at the man. His ears pushed flat against his head and Tubbo could tell by the way Ranboo’s fingers moved to wrap around him that he was anxious.

“Wil, he’s not gonna hurt you,” Tubbo said softly. To prove his point he rested his arm against one of Ranboo’s massive fingers- it didn’t seem to comfort Wilbur much though if his heavy breathing was anything to go off of.

“Wilbur breathe,” Tommy hummed, “It’s safe I promise. I don’t even like him, but you’re safe.”

“Yeah we’re not gonna let you get hurt big man,” Tubbo reassured.

Above them all Ranboo made a show of putting his hands behind his back before sitting back down.

“See not scary,” Tubbo smiled.

However, Wilbur still looked like he was going to cry. His eyes blinked frantically to clear away the oncoming tears while Tommy tried to calm him down to no avail.

Wilbur gulped down a deep breath, “How are you...”

Tubbo opened his mouth to continue before Ranboo’s voice echoed through the den again.

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” Ranboo whispered, “You can leave if you want.”

Wilbur’s head snapped upwards as he cowered away from the giant again.

“Look...I’ve been seeing Tubbo and Tommy for months now,” Ranboo said slowly, “If I meant to hurt them I already would have done it...And you’re their family, so why would I hurt you?”

Wilbur tightened his grip on Tommy’s arm, “You’re a monster...”

A soft hum came from Ranboo as the giant shifted to lay down on his stomach- his face now eye level with Wilbur.

“I know,” Ranboo agreed, “...But Im not going to hurt you. I would never.”

Meanwhile Tubbo walked over to Ranboo’s face and leaned against his cheek. With one finger Ranboo moved Tubbo to his nose and gently pushed against the human. Wilbur’s mouth hung open as he watched.

“Tubbo...” Wilbur exhaled.

Tubbo smiled at Wilbur and motioned for him to come closer. With a gentle nudge from Tommy, Wilbur reluctantly took a couple of steps until he was only a few feet from Ranboo’s face. His posture was rigid like a frightened animal ready to flee, but it was progress.

When nothing happened Wilbur took a couple more steps until he was face to face with giant. Ranboo’s massive eyes blinked once at the human before closing.

“How is this possible?” Wilbur whispered.

Tubbo shrugged and grabbed onto Wilbur’s wrist with a questioning look. When there was no resistance from Wilbur, Tubbo slowly placed his hand against Ranboo’s fur. Wilbur tensed up at the feeling but allowed Tubbo to guide his fingers through the thick strands.

“He’s different big man,” Tommy hummed from beside the two, “Not like the one you saw before.”

“Yeah, and he saved me yaknow?” Tubbo smiled.

Wilbur yanked his hand away when a slow vibration resonated from Ranboo’s body. Tubbo chuckled and guided Wilbur’s hand back down.

“He’s just purring dude,” Tubbo reassured, “It’s safe.”

Wilbur furrowed his eyebrows at the the giant with a small frown.

“See he’s just like a big dumb cat,” Tommy laughed.

One of Ranboo’s eyes popped open and glared at Tommy. Slowly, as to not startle Wilbur, Ranboo’s hand gently shoved Tommy to the side; Tommy huffed out some curses but didn’t seem too upset.

And for the first time that night Tubbo heard Wilbur laugh. It was soft and still a bit shaken, but it was a laugh nonetheless. Ranboo seemed to notice too and slowly opened his eyes to look back down at Wilbur.

Slowly, Ranboo pressed his face against Wil’s hand and whispered, “It’s okay”

Wilbur let out a small broken laugh, “This is...this is so fucked up.”

“Tell me about it,” Tommy scoffed.

Wilbur watched in complete awe as the giant reached out a hand to him. The clawed fingers were only an arms-length away but the creature made no move to grab at him.

Within seconds Tubbo had crawled up onto the outstretched palm and Tommy reluctantly allowed himself to be pulled up too. Wilbur’s face fell at the sight.

“I won’t move I promise,” Ranboo whispered, “And you don’t have to.”

Wilbur took a deep breath and slowly reached out his hand to the giant’s. His skin met Ranboo’s for a brief moment before he pulled away again. He couldn’t bring himself to be that close to that...that monster.

“I...I would like to go home,” Wilbur muttered, “Please.”

Ranboo smiled sadly at the older human and gently placed Tubbo and Tommy back onto the ground. Tommy looked like he was about to argue with Wil before Tubbo stepped in.

“We can go home Wil just...you can’t tell anyone about him,” Tubbo said sternly.

Wilbur met Tubbo’s hard gaze and let his eyes momentarily shift up to the giant’s. The red and green gaze was frightening, but it also held a deep sense of kindness.

After a few moments he let out a small hum of agreement and waved an anxious goodbye to the giant.

“I’m Ranboo,” the giant called out, “By the way.”

Wilbur paused beside his brothers and thought for a moment before turning on his heel. His eyes held a sense of determination as he walked back to the giant. With a deep breath he moved his hand to the giant’s own and pressed into the fur.

“I’m Wilbur,” he said after a few seconds of silence.

Ranboo grinned and gave him a small hum before Wilbur ran off back to the other humans. The giant watched as the three left- his tail wagged beside him happily. He was a little upset Tubbo wouldn’t be staying, but the meeting with Wilbur wasn’t that bad.

Ranboo knew it was hard for people to get used to him but he hoped eventually Wilbur would come around too.

[danny-yagami]

The Cafe

Content: TommyInnIt x reader, Wilbur Soot x reader (separate!)

Note: This was requested by @jovielove ("Can you guys write a wilbur x reader pov cafe themed or a Tommy x reader cafe thing? Bc I like to see how you guys write! OK love you guys goodnighhhtttt sat hi to Shelby for meee!!!")

Content is: Headcanons/story

Warning: Fluff, fluff, and more fluff, possibly a cat cafe in Wilbur's part? Some memes (like the cat one below lol)

TommyInnIt

Tommy yelled for you once from his room, so you decided to see what he wanted.

"What is it, Tommy?" you opened his bedroom door and stared into his eyes.

Tommy grinned and got up, marching proudly to you. "We're going to a cafe that one of my friends recommended to me. It's a while away, but I thought it would be nice to get out and take a break from streaming."

You blinked a few times, clearly confused.

"Don't give me that look!" Tommy whined, "We both just need some time together without distractions."

You smiled then turned on your heel, saying something along the lines of, "Then it's a date."

Tommy silently cheered as the two of you got ready and headed out the door, chatting away as you two walked. It did take a bit of time to get to the cafe, but one you two walked in, you were hit with the comforting scent of food and coffee and the sound of people talking.

Tommy ordered for the both of you for your drinks, and you both had a stare down since you both wanted to pay. Tommy flipped you off and payed for the drinks as you pouted.

Once you both got your drinks, you both sat down, talking about your plans for the next few days to come.

In the end, you and Tommy felt so happy and content in each other's presence.

Wilbur Soot

You practically dragged your boyfriend into a cat cafe when you saw it on your guy's walk. Wilbur thought it would be nice to get some fresh air and sunlight too. But, now? He is extremely happy that he coaxed you into getting out of your shared apartment to see that you looked more than excited to go in and relax, drinking some coffee and petting some cats. Wilbur felt himself getting all warm and fuzzy on the inside from seeing you almost bounce around from cat to cat as he ordered.

"Y/n, my muse, I need you to settle down just a bit so we can sit down and drink our drinks," he had wrapped his arm around your shoulder as you held a kitten.

"But Wilbur!" You whined as you held up the kitten, and it took everything in him to snatch the cat away from you and hold it himself. "The cat was begging to be held!"

He chuckled and patted your head then stroked the cat's head before getting you to sit down. It seemed like luck was in his favor because he got to sit down at a cafe with you, but at a cat cafe, and to see you so happy.

As you finished up, you held your boyfriend's hand as you walked out, waving goodbye to the cat's that you both got so attached to. "Wil, we should come here again," you yawed and swung your hand back and forth with his.

Wilbur nodded and stopped your hands, only to pull them up to his mouth and him placing a small, but soft, kiss on your knuckles as he stated, "I love the sound of that idea."

Ending note: Thank you so much Jovie for the request! Even though I had said I would make sure to post it first thing in the morning, I thought it'd be nice to post now! I really enjoyed writing this and I would love to get more requests from you anytime! ❤️

[harmonic-function]

i listened to cendrillon on loop and ended up writing something for my voca ship.. i figured i might as well post it?

in advance: i write the boys based off of my own headcanons/characterizations of them, this particular story takes place pre-relationship, and it's also meant to be more of a comedy than an actual cute and fluffy fic ww. it's basically "this is almost romantic but is then immediately ruined"

word count: 2,123 ! ... woah!

None of them were sure how to address it, but something strange was going on with their producer.

Recently, he’d started showing up to their meetings dressed in some sort of costume, and he would randomly speak under his breath- words that none of them could really hear, but with the way he said them so passionately, you’d think he was trying to summon something right there in the cafe. Not to mention he would always show up late, would appear out of breath whenever he did show up, and when asked about what he had been busy doing, he would simply respond “It’s nothing. I’ll let you all know when it’s ready.”

So basically, at this point, they were all convinced that their producer had joined some sort of evil cult. They all decided that today’s meeting would serve as an intervention.

“Hey guys, sorry! I was busy again toda-” He stopped and stared at the three, who were silently sitting at the table- surrounded by bottles of water labeled with crosses. “...Hello?”

Wil gestured for him to take a seat, which he reluctantly did. “Producer, we need to talk about your…” he paused, thinking about how to phrase the next bit. “...occult habits,” he finished.

“My what?”

“Oh, come on, don’t act like you don’t know! You’ve been acting so weird lately!” Yuu slammed a fist on the table. “All that whispering, or whatever! That elaborate outfit you’ve been wearing to every meeting! You showed up with your hands stained red once! Are we supposed to just ignore all of that?!” He inhaled, then exhaled, calmly folding his hands together. “Dude, you have a serious problem. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

The producer was silent. You could nearly see the gears turning in his head as he tried to piece together just what the hell they were talking about.

Then, it connected.

“...Are you guys talking about my theatre rehearsals?!”

“Huh?” They all spoke up at once.

“Theatre?” Wil.

“You’re in a play?!” Kyo.

“Well, why didn’t you just say that?” Yuu.

“I wanted to wait until the day before our show to tell you,” Eve said, then frowned. “Which.. would have been today, but.. well, the guy who plays the other lead role with me got injured, and-”

“You’re playing one of the lead roles in a play and didn’t think to tell us?!” Yuu clutched at his chest like he’d just been shot.

“I said I wanted to wait, didn’t I?” Eve moved his hair from his face, shooting Yuu a look that made him shrink back in his seat. “Right. Anyway, he tried really hard to keep showing up even though he was hurt- poor thing- but it just kept making it worse. Now he’s basically been forced to take some time off, which means we have no other lead role.” He sighed. “We’ve been trying to find someone suited to take his role, holding last-minute auditions and everything, but it doesn’t seem like people are interested in acting on such short notice. So we’re basically screwed. Might have to call it off entirely.”

The group was silent for a few moments. Wil stood up, collected all of the holy water bottles that were still sitting on the table, and left to go throw them away.

“...What was the play about?” Kyo asked.

“Oh, just your typical fairytale story. Two princes meet, spend a nice evening together, you get it.”

Kyo’s eyes lit up. “Sounds romantic.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Yuu looked back and forth between the two, an idea forming in his mind. “Hey, producer.” He spoke, using his most innocent-sounding voice. “You need someone to play the other lead, right? I definitely know how to put on a good performance..” He winked. “I could always-”

Yuu felt someone kick him from under the table. There we go.

“What, you? No way, it should be me!” Kyo protested.

“Kyo, you like acting?” Eve asked, making him freeze in place. All he could do was nod. “Really? That’s so cool! We could be the leads together, then! Or, well, you’d probably have to audition against Yuu-”

“No, no. No need for that.” Yuu smiled. “Kyo can take the role, I don’t mind.”

“Really? Great!” Eve turned to Kyo, taking his hand in his own from across the table. “You and I are together, then! I’ll pick you up later!”

It was at that moment that Wil returned to the table. He looked back and forth between the two, who were still very much holding hands.

"Oh." He said. ‘Congratulations?’

Kyo felt like he was going to die.

…

“Have you ever been here before? Like, backstage?” Eve led Kyo through the old community theatre building, muttering ‘excuse us’ and ‘sorry’ to nearly every person they bumped into. Kyo shook his head, prompting a smile from Eve. “Really? Nice! I’m glad I get to be the one to show you, then.”

“I.. I’m really glad, too." Kyo's voice was barely raised above a whisper.

They made it. The backstage area wasn’t relatively big or anything, and it wasn’t nearly as pretty as the actual stage itself, but Kyo had to admit- it did seem to have some sort of strange magic to it. It even made his heart race a little…

..or, no, that was just because Eve was here. And because, well, thinking about it-

“You said the play was a fairytale, right? A story between two princes?” He was already thinking of what possible cute scenes they would have to act out together. One rescuing the other from danger? A kiss, maybe? A wedding??? “..Could you tell me more about that?”

“Oh, yeah. Um.. it’d be easier to follow with the script- someone should be here soon with those, by the way- but basically, these two guys meet at the ball and fall in love with each other. Like, love at first sight kind of deal. They spend all night dancing together, talking, laughing, you get it.”

Kyo looked away, trying to hide his blushing face. “That’s..” Exciting? Everything I could have ever hoped for? “..sweet.”

“Yeah, at least until the clock strikes midnight.” Eve chuckled. “Then everything goes to hell.”

“...What?” Kyo turned back towards him, staring in horror. “What does that m-”

Before he could ask, someone rushed up to the two, a bunch of stapled papers in hand. “Sorry, sorry! I hope this is fine?” He looked down. The top of the first page read ‘SCRIPT’. Kyo hesitantly took it, giving the person a small “thank you”. Then, hands shaking, he flipped to the last few pages.

“...You have to kill me?!”

Kyo spent the entire rest of the practice session asking the director for a rewrite of the ending. He got rejected every single time.

…

Despite the complete shock and terror Kyo had felt initially, the practice had gone well, and eventually, all that was left to do was put on the final performance.

“Do I look okay?”

“This is the fifth time you’ve asked me that in the past three minutes.” Eve adjusted his tie, then turned to smile at him. “You look fine. Cute, even. Now, quit worrying!”

Kyo turned away so Eve wouldn’t see his face flush at the compliment. “That’s.. ah. Thank you.” There was silence between the two of them for a few moments before he spoke up again. “Look, I know I said I’d suck it up, but… man, this ending really sucks!”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Eve looked towards the stage. “It’s all pretty messed up. But, if it helps, I’d never want to do anything like this with you in real life.”

“What, the ‘spending a romantic evening together' part, or the part where you kill me?” Kyo joked.

Eve continued staring in the stage’s direction.

“...C-Can I get an answer to that?!”

“Yes! The answer is always yes!” A familiar voice came from behind them, and an arm slung itself over Kyo’s shoulders. With a startled yelp, he spun around and came face to face with Yuu- and Wil, who was standing close behind him. “Hi, lovebirds!”

“D-Don’t call us that!” Kyo resisted the urge to hide his face in his hands. “How did you get back here, anyway?!”

Yuu shrugged. “The director let us in! Nice guy, huh?”

‘Yuu distracted him and then dragged me in here.’ Wil signed.

“Hey, don’t tell them!” Yuu elbowed him in the side, then shook his head. “Oh, forget it. Just wanted to tell you both to break a leg or something. Uh- but don’t actually get hurt, though. Seriously, I want to watch Kyo make a fool of himself up close and personal.” He grinned. “That’s exactly why I’m back here, actually! This is a good view- even better than what front row seats will give you! Don’t you agree, Wil?”

‘I would literally rather be sitting in a chair right now.’

While Yuu whined about how Wil “wasn’t any fun”, Eve and Kyo managed to slip away to a quieter spot in the backstage area. They sat next to each other, perhaps a little too closely to really be comfortable. Their hands were almost touching. They were both aware of that, but they did nothing.

“We go on in a few minutes,” Kyo stated simply. “Um.. I’m glad we get to do this together.”

“Even if my character ends up stabbing yours?” Eve grinned, giving him a playful shove.

He hesitated. “Well.. I wouldn’t mind dying, if you’re the one that kills me.”

Eve’s eyes widened. He looked down at the floor, tapping his fingers together nervously. “Don’t… don’t say that. That’s weird, man.” He let out a weak laugh. “I wouldn’t even want to kill you, anyway. I care about you too much for that.”

“You- you care about me?” Kyo’s voice wavered, making Eve look back up at him.

“What, are you about to cry? Dude, of course I care about you! You’re.. um,” He paused. “You’re my best friend. You’re important to me.”

Kyo’s expression became unreadable. “Your best friend.. right.”

Somewhere, someone called for them to take their places.

…

The fated scene drew closer and closer. Gently, the two moved across the stage, holding each other like it was the last time they were going to be able to do so. And technically, for their characters, it would be.

...Did it really have to be the end for them, though? Could they still be able to 'love’ each other, even off-stage?

“Kyo,” Eve murmured, making sure the audience couldn’t hear him. “When this is over.. I have to tell you something. Okay?”

“Okay,” Kyo whispered back. “Is it time now?”

Unfortunately, it was. The clock chimed, marking the time as midnight, and the two withdrew from each other.

“Ah… it’s been an honor being in your presence tonight. I’ll say, I found myself wishing that the night would never end.” Eve spoke, bowing. It was true, for both his character and himself.

“Likewise, my dear. Being with you has brought me a special kind of happiness that I thought I’d forgotten. I believe… that kind of happiness.. is called love.” Kyo took Eve’s hand in his own. “That is to say, I think.. I’ve fallen in love with you.” Oh, he didn’t just think. He knew he had.

Eve took a step closer, leaning in. “I love you, too.” He forced himself to look down, taking in a deep breath before he delivered his next line. “..But it cannot be.” And then, the fatal blow was struck.

Literally.

See, Eve was meant to graze Kyo’s side with his fist as he moved in, to merely simulate the appearance of a stab. Unfortunately, the recent romantic tension had thrown him completely off-balance, and so...

He ended up punching Kyo in the gut, at full strength, in front of an entire audience.

Kyo fell to the ground instantly, a pained wheeze leaving his lips. Eve stood there, horrified, before turning around and bolting off-stage in a complete panic, leaving him there to suffer.

The crowd cheered, seemingly unaware of the absolute freak accident that had just taken place. To them, it was a part of the show.

Backstage, Yuu and Wil seemed just as unaware.

‘Nice work.’

“Yeah, right? That scene just now was incredible! I didn’t even know Kyo was so good at acting- the look of betrayal on his face right now is so realistic! It’s like you’ve actually wounded him!” Yuu gushed.

Eve collapsed, curling up into a ball on the floor. “I ruined it. I've ruined everything. God, there’s no way I can tell him now...”

Somehow, negative progress was made towards their relationship?!

(It's okay, it'll get fixed up later!)

[yeet-me-dad-dy]

Jack’s Lament

Summary: You and Wilford visit a pumpkin patch and he leaves with a new helmet.

Warnings: None.

Characters: Wilford x Gender Neutral reader

Words: 1,310

Requested by @moriimae​

The crisp afternoon air brings with it the scent of the gently falling rain and nearby freshly baked pastries. You walk with Wilford, hand in hand, toward the wrought-iron archway of the town’s famous pumpkin patch. The gates stand open wide, a yawning maw of black metal and dead, twisted vines that post an eerie invitation for guests to enter the grounds. The small, rusty wagon that Wilford pulls behind him bumps along happily down the sidewalk, its axles occasionally squeaking in protest of the damp and cold.

Wil’s face lights up when the two of you step through the gates, pay for your admission, and receive the stamps on the back of your hands notifying the volunteers that you are allowed in the grounds and free to pick any gourds of your choosing. As you wander down the paved road toward the mansion that towers ominously toward the back of the property, Wilford gives you a nudge.

“Think it’s haunted?” he asks with a smirk, his pink mustache twitching mischievously. 

You chuckle and shake your head.

“Maybe, but if it’s not, you’re not allowed to make it haunted, okay?”

Your pumpkin picking partner fakes a pout, but the facade breaks in only seconds and then he’s grinning again. You give him a nudge to the left, forcing him off the driveway and toward the sprawling gardens. 

“We’re here for pumpkins, not mansions, remember?” you remind him.

“Aww, but I wanted to go ghost hunting…”

You pat him on the shoulder and then take his hand in yours once more with a soft smile.

“We already have a haunted mansion, Wil, we don’t need another.”

“Yeah, but I know what haunts ours, and Dark doesn’t like to play ghost hunters.”

“If you would stop trying to suck him into the vacuum, maybe he would.”

You watch as a look of nostalgia ghosts over Wilford’s face, and he smiles at the memory. 

Only a few more steps later, the two of you find yourself amongst the twisting vines of healthy orange pumpkins. 

“I want the biggest pumpkin they have,” Wilford states plainly, and you chuckle.

“Of course you do. You better get to looking if you want to find it before anyone else does.”

You and Wil arrived at the pumpkin patch only a minute after they opened their gates. You were the first ones inside, but there was already a crowd filing in through the gates behind you. 

“You look over here and I’ll go look over there!” he tells you. He doesn’t give you even a second to reply before he’s is sprinting through the garden, hurtling over pumpkins. 

“Be careful, Wil!” you call after him. 

Knowing him, he’ll end up tripping over a vine and breaking his neck. Again. He dropped the handle of the wagon when he decided to run off, so you pick it up in his stead and begin your trek more deliberately through the living maze. Almost every pumpkin in this patch would be perfect for something, whether that be carving or cooking. The family that grows these tends to their plants with love all year so that they’re the best they can be come autumn. 

You bend down and use the sleeve of your grey knit cardigan to wipe the rain from a medium gourd. Bright orange and round, with no flat face and a strong vine, this pumpkin would be perfect for carving. You shimmy your knife out of your pocket and flip it open, then carefully cut the pumpkin free, making sure to leave enough of a stem on it that it won’t go rotten for a while. You hoist the pumpkin up in your arms. Not too big, not too small, not too heavy. Perfect. The old wagon squeaks when you place your pick onto the folded blanket in its bottom, and it lets out a pitiful groan when you give the handle a tug, urging it to follow behind you. It does, but not without protest and pouting.

You scan the pumpkins as you wind your way through the garden, toward Wilford’s unmistakable yellow shirt and rainbow suspenders a few meters away. 

“Wil!” you call out to him. “Did you find a pumpkin yet?”

He whirls around with a grin on his face and, with some effort, heaves a massive pumpkin into the air over his head.

“If you drop that, you’re gonna break your neck!” you scold, though you know he doesn’t care.

It’s not like it would kill him.

Nevertheless, he lowers the pumpkin so that he can cradle it in his arms like a baby, all fifty or so pounds. You smile and shake your head as you close the distance, approaching Wilford with a look that says ‘you are absolutely ridiculous, but it’s endearing and I love you’.

“Is that the one you’re going with?” you ask.

He nods excitedly as he steps around you and plops his pumpkin into the wagon next to yours, met with a disgruntled groaning of axles and screws. 

“You are chaos incarnate,” you chuckle, and he responds by leaning over to give you a peck on the cheek.

“Can we keep looking?” he asks, watching you with those big brown puppy dog eyes that you so adore. 

“Well, our wagon isn’t full yet, so I’m gonna go with yes.”

“Great! I’m gonna find a pumpkin for Dark.”

He takes off again, though this time much slower, so you’re able to follow without much trouble as he skips along merrily.

Three decent pumpkins later and you’re heading back to the entrance with Wilford and a wagonfull of gourds in tow. He runs ahead of you like a dog off leash, rushing back and forth, running circles around you, hopping pumpkins, and hurtling vines. There are times when it’s nice that Wil doesn’t get tired easily, and then there are times like these. You trek slowly along, panting from the effort of pulling the heavy wagon behind you.

“Hey Wil, can you take a turn pulling the wagon? I’m tired.”

He stops and looks toward your voice when he hears his name, and upon your request begins to bound toward you. And then he stops, dead in his tracks, and looks down at his feet.

“Wil?” you ask, brow furrowed in concern. “You okay? What happened?”

He reaches down, pulls something off of his foot - something that you can’t quite see - and then lifts a head-sized pumpkin up to show you the hole in the bottom that his foot made when he accidentally stepped on it.

“Whoops,” he chuckles, then tucks the pumpkin under his arm, entirely unfazed by the guts that stain his shirt.

“Guess that’s one more pumpkin for the wagon,” you smile. 

You stop to allow him to put the pumpkin with the others, and he retrieves it from under his arm before he hesitates. He regards the pumpkin.

“I’m gonna wear it as a hat.”

“Wh-? No, don’t do that.”

“I’m gonna do it.”

“Wilford, it’ll get-”

He shoves the pumpkin down onto his head, a bit more forcefully than he probably meant to. It slides, not only over his head, but also over his face, nearly taking his ears off as it goes.

“-stuck.” You finish your sentence with a sigh and bring your hand up to pinch the bridge of your nose. 

Wilford stands before you, unmoving, with a pumpkin over his head.

“Can you breathe?” you ask, deadpan. 

“Nope,” comes his answer, muffled by his new helmet. 

“Awesome…” You sigh again. “Whelp. Come on then. Take my hand. I’ll lead you out of here.”

Blindly, he shoos you aside so that he can take the wagon from you, then he offers you his free hand. You take it with a smile that you know he can’t see, and lead him back to the entrance.

Bonus:

“Wilford, why is there a pumpkin on your head?” Dark asks when the two of you return to the manor.

“It’s my new helmet,” Wil answers, his voice muffled.

“He’s stuck,” you clarify as you move past Dark and into the kitchen with a pumpkin in hand.

[written-in-light-blog1]

“LET US SPEAK OF THE TERRIBLE BEAUTY OF BECOMING OURSELVES”

Illustrating Destiny’s Books of Sorrow with community artist Francine Bridge

One of the most impressive Destiny fan-projects we’ve seen to date has been Francine Bridge’s incredible illustrated rendering of Destiny’s Books of Sorrow. Francine, otherwise known as Witnesstheabsurd, agreed to take some time to answer a few of our questions about her work, its impetus, and what the project means to her.

Written by Seth Dickinson, the Books of Sorrow tell the story of the Hive - and by extension Oryx and his siblings - and give deep, rich background to one of the game’s largest and most important conflicts. Lyric and evocative, the books offer insight into both the Hive themselves and the universe they inhabit, and remain Destiny’s most impressive and most in-depth piece of lore-building. For those who may have joined the community in Destiny 2, or never had the chance to read the original books, they can be read in their entirety here. Francine’s project shows the same impressive attention to detail, and most importantly, the same level of empathy as the works that inspired it. We’re ecstatic to be able to share this conversation with the Destiny community, and we hope you’ll take the time to admire the full project.

You can find Francine on Artstation, as well as on Twitter and Tumblr.

Written in Light: To get things started, tell us a bit about yourself. What you're studying, what field you work in, what you like to do for fun - give us a brief summary of who you are and what's important to you!

Francine Bridge: HI! I'm Francine, although I'm better known online as Witnesstheabsurd. I work as a freelance illustrator and concept artist in the UK - you might have seen some of my work in the game Hiveswap or at labels like Killstar. I do album covers, shirt designs, character/monster etc design work for games, comics, private clients. I'm currently in my 4th and final (I took an extra sandwich year to do a supplemental diploma in professional studies) year of my Illustration and Visual Media BA degree in London, after which I'm probably going to look for more permanent studio/contract work rather than the one-off freelance stuff I've been pursuing while I've been in school.

A couple of years ago, prior to starting the degree, I came out as a trans woman, which is probably an important detail, and it's informed a lot of my  work. However, my driving impulse has always been monsters - my preoccupation with Destiny started entirely because a friend of mine showed me screencaps of Oryx after the The Taken King release and I was smitten. Pretty much all of the media I consume, the games I play, the art I create is in pursuit of ever greater or more unique creature and monster design, and they're very dear to my heart.

As far as what I do for fun  - my day is 90% working at the tablet, but I find time to play some games and build "gunpla" model kits as well as paw through my artbook collection. Almost everything I do is informed by my profession, so I use my hobbies as a means to access and process more referential or inspirational visual material or  techniques. I only recently started sincerely learning how to actually "paint," rather than just do some basic rendering under lineart, so that's been a major part of my work lately.

WiL: Was there anything in particular about Oryx that really drew you to him? Did Oryx come across as particularly great and/or unique to you, or is there something else that struck you with his character or design?

FB: Well, as I said, I'm transgender. In the ‘pitch’ my friend made to me about Oryx as a character,  the most interesting aspect to me was that he's a transgender man (although I'm a trans woman, the experience has some shared parallels obviously).

In media, it's incredibly difficult to find trans characters not wholly defined by that aspect of their identity, or who aren't constantly wallowing in the Misery and Tragedy of being trans. I want trans characters who occupy all roles - villain, hero, supporting and main - and it's rare to find anyone who's more than a token or like, tragedy porn. Oryx super resonated with me because he was this figure who acquired power and immediately transitioned, asserting his identity in a way that couldn't be defied - Oryx's story is very much one about self-definition and the value of existence under your own terms, which are very important concepts to me.

When I decided to start work on illustrating the Books I actually reached out to Seth Dickinson, the author Bungie contracted to write them (and the Cabal Booklet/odd flavour text, by the way) to get some specific questions answered and he was kind enough to respond and was very cooperative and supportive. Among the things I asked about I wanted to know  if Oryx was consciously written as transgender character or if it was just a coincidental "weird alien race" flourish. I was very happy to learn Seth had purposefully written Oryx that way, and that he was happy people took strength from it.

It's very novel to have, like, a "trans power fantasy"... a character who acquires absolute power over the self and instantly rewrites the contract between themselves and their body that so many of us spend our entire lives making adjustments to and renegotiating for some measure of peace. It was satisfying, refreshing.

Oryx is super cool to me on multiple visual levels obviously as well, being a mineral-encrusted deep space insect mummy warlord, but that element specifically sets him apart for me, and always will. It's cool to know that a trans character in Destiny can also be a hideous monster from beyond the stars.

WiL: Nice! I've wondered if Oryx was intentionally written to reflect a transgender person. I'm glad to hear a positive answer to that question, and I'm glad you found strength in it!

My next question is, why did you decide to take on this project? I mean, it's very clear that you love Oryx, so that factor is a given, but you mentioned in your original post that this was something you did for your degree. Care to elaborate on that?

FB: So, the structure of my illustration degree is such that while we’re given specific "briefs," such as topics or techniques, the final year gives us significantly more free rein. We're obligated to  complete three "projects" and author a thesis over the course of the final year, but the subject matter, material, everything about those projects is our call. The outcomes are judged based solely on technical and professional development rather than adherence to a specific brief.

This left the field wide open for me to kill two birds with one stone and bring in a project I had intended to do anyhow, but hadn't had the time or space for; something that I was sincerely passionate about rather than an edict handed down by a tutor. Illustrating the Books of Sorrow was something i'd wanted to do ever since I first read them back in The Taken King, and I jumped at  the chance. In addition, while i've produced and formatted artbooks before (My first published work, The Occult Supergiant Primer, can be found here ), I've been able to recoup the time invested away from client work in sales and funding. The Books are obviously material belonging to Bungie and I can't justify selling copies, digital or otherwise, of my illustrated version, so I had to find some other reason to make this investment of time and unpaid work worthwhile as well as enjoyable.

Being able to use the work produced to further my degree was the perfect "excuse.” That said, I've received so much attention from the Destiny community at large, including commissioned work from several new clients, that it would have easily been worth it regardless.

WiL: Your work definitely deserves the attention, you clearly have a strong sense of design! Would you be willing to tell us a little bit about the process you went through to make the Books of Sorrow? Do you have any early versions or storyboards that you'd like to share? Or did any of the illustrations go through any major changes from start to finish, and would you be willing/able to show us that process and talk a bit about why you made the changes you made?

FB: The greater part of the Books came together incredibly smoothly and naturally, with very little iteration required on specific pieces. The images had been stewing in my mind ever since I read the original verses a few years ago and they were more than ready to be rendered. What did require a lot of research, development and false starts were the designs for the sisters, Savathûn and Xivu Arath. Both of them have yet to appear ingame in any major capacity (although it's looking likely Savathûn is going to be a Year 2 DLC), so it was up to me to create designs for them that:

Satisfied the descriptions appended to them in the verses, as light as they were, and also matched the info Seth gave me

Satisfied my own personal expectations and interpretation

Conformed to the lore and the existing known morphology of the Hive in a way that would make them recognizable to a player with no prior familiarity with the Books

Balancing these principles lead to a lot of internal back and forth - Savathûn was easier because we had already seen her brood in D2 on Titan, so I knew to emphasize ornate crests, bonelike texture and a slightly less mineral, more biological look by comparison to Oryx's brood, the hive we exclusively encountered in D1. She was tough at first but ultimately fell into line with something satisfying for me, which actually drew a lot from the Xenomorph Queen in Aliens.

Xivu Arath was a little trickier because she had to be distinct from Oryx, who kind of already occupies the "big mineral/bone-encrusted bruiser" archetype visually, so I had to take her even further. I spent a lot of time wondering whether she would have any ornamentation like some of  the bigger Knights (Alak-Hul comes to mind), given that she represents the "ultimate" Knight morph, but I eventually eschewed all decoration in favour of something reflecting her nature in the narrative: blunt, implacable, spartan. She dispenses with the ritual and hierarchical trappings the other siblings indulge in - notably she decides that all battlefields are her Court, rather than entertaining a court herself, and she tends to default to just brutally bludgeoning whatever stands in her way rather than making an appeal to the Deep or engaging in trickery. I was very satisfied with how she turned out, and the piece featuring her is easily one of my favourites.

WiL: I was going to ask which piece is your favorite! Do you have a Top 3 that you're most proud of?

Is there anything about the Books that you wish were different, or is there something you wish you had the opportunity to draw for this project but couldn't justify including it?

FB: I have a strong tendency to favour whichever the last piece I completed was, because by default I'm always proudest of my most recent work and very rapidly lose favour with pieces even like, a week old. That said, I think overall the strongest piece for me personally would be Oryx slaying Akka, alongside the final Wormfood painting and the Savathun piece, although honorable mentions go to Xivu Arath and Quria, Blade Transform.

I can't say there's anything about the Books specifically I wish was different. The part of me that's purely consuming it as a narrative wishes that they had found Taox, that there had been some confrontation there. I feel like there's a very strong "childhood vengeance" element to the Taox subplot, like when you're put down by an adult for drawing in class and you fantasize about coming back to the school years later as a wildly successful artist and making them admit they were wrong to have stopped you. A key part of that fantasy is recognizing it as a remnant of childhood, this impulse born out of a narrower perspective and inflated self-worth, and realizing you can move past that shit (Although if/when I do become a wildly successful artist there might be a few teachers I'll look up).

Ultimately, I think the arc of the books and what the story is trying to say about distortion of intent and self makes Taox disappearing a much more emotionally resonant and interesting turn. It would be neat if Taox turned up somewhere in-game, and became the focal point of a new Hive offensive.  An entire species/culture with such a specific individual grudge is a fascinating concept.

With about a month and a half of time allotted for the project and 50 verses, there was a lot of stuff I had to cut despite how much it hurt - in a complete version I would have wanted a painting for every verse, but specifically I would have liked to draw Akka in full, the Dakaua War Angels, the Harmony/Gift Mast,  the Qugu; basically I would have given form to the many species and cultures Seth conjures up with a few phrases and a loose description but still manages to make incredibly evocative.

WiL: Do you think you'll ever return to the project and draw those images, either as standalone pieces or as an update to the PDF you've already made?

FB: An update to the .pdf itself is unlikely. I tend to consider projects released to be complete, and usually by the time I revisit a subject I'm not obligated to work on it will have been a few years at the very least. I tend to have developed my technique and approach enough that new pieces inserted retroactively would look somewhat disjointed in terms of quality and style. The chance of releasing standalone paintings - especially of points of specific interest for me like say, Akka in his entirety, the Dakaua war angels, the Qugu, etc. -  is significantly higher. Whether that happens sooner or later depends entirely on what my current workload looks like, and aside from the incredibly generous and supportive response to the project from the larger community the Books are very much a passion project and have to be weighed against, say, contract or school work going forwards.

WiL: That makes sense. What other projects do you have going on right now, if any?

FB: Just this morning I decided on the subject of my final degree project, which I'm also planning to run as my second artbook with an accompanying Kickstarter and print run - something I can actually sell as well as being material that excites me! It's entirely too early to disclose any specific details about it though.

Other than that, I continue to produce odd pieces of fanart in between a regular flow of client work both from private individuals and studios. I guess I can safely say I'll be doing more work on the second Homestuck game after contributing to the first, as well as doing some designs for a music video I was contracted for, and also finishing my thesis for the aforementioned degree.

The key thing, I think, is to keep moving - I get very anxious when I'm spinning my wheels between projects, and the temptation to linger on the threshold a while longer is incredibly strong, especially when there's always the fear your new work will fail to surpass what's come before. Reaching a personal peak like some of the paintings I did for the Books of Sorrow is a double-edged sword, and it can signify both a great accomplishment and a raising of the bar that can be daunting to follow. I'm confident that whatever you see from me next will manage it, though!

WiL: Believe me, after talking with you for a while, I'm confident your next project will meet your expectations. You are a very talented and very ambitious artist, and we can’t wait to see where your career takes you! It’s been a pleasure to talk to you, and we’re looking forward to your next Destiny passion project.

//

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

All images courtesy Francine Bridge

[therealestatesparkblog]

Investing NOW So You Can Have the Lifestyle You Want LATER? You're Doing it Wrong.

The majority of individuals on BiggerPockets are investing in real estate because they want to create financial freedom. Blog and forum posts often touch on the fact that building out a real estate portfolio will allow you to achieve financial freedom. And I certainly agree with this notion. But what Ive come to realize is that financial freedom isnt what its all about. Few people actively write about building a lifestyle. True, there are many blog posts that touch on lifestyle by roughly saying, I invest in real estate so that I can eventually do these additional things that I love. The focus is on building a real estate portfolio with the lifestyle as a result. And thats the problem. Todays article is going to focus on building a lifestyle with the real estate portfolio or business as the result. What will be notably different in my article is that your desired lifestyle is the objective, not a number of units, not a cash flow per door number, and not even a financial freedom number. I want to turn the formula upside down. Were not investing in real estate and as a result, going to live an awesome lifestyle. Instead, were going to live an awesome lifestyle and as a result, invest in real estate. Lifestyle is SecondaryOr is It? There can be a high price to pay for financial freedom, especially if your means of getting there is investing in real estate or starting a business. Stress is high, money is tight, and your tenant just didnt want to pay rent this month. How many times have you met a business owner or real estate investor whois earning gobs of money yet openly complains about their lifestyle? With further prodding, you learn that these poor souls work insane hours, are always on call, and live in a constant jet stream of stress. But they earn $500k! Surely they are just cynical, as anyone earning that much must be happy. Trust me, as a CPA who interacts with and provides services to plenty of folks earning much more than $500k, money quickly loses its value in regard tohappiness. Money has a diminishing marginal return, meaning that after a certain point, each additional dollar you earn brings less happiness than the dollar before it. Research suggests this peak dollar figure is $70,000 annually. Related: How to Use Lifestyle Design to Create an Ideal Retirement Driven by Passive Income An example of diminishing marginal return: You order 10 cheeseburgers (you freakin love cheeseburgers!), and you eat them all in one sitting. You havent eaten in a while, so the first one is delicious. It truly hits the spot. The second one is also delicious. Its cooked medium rare, nice and juicy, perfectly seasoned. The third one is good, but you are starting to get full so its not as good as the first two. By the tenth cheeseburger, youre so full that the sight of it repulses you. Thats diminishing marginal return in a nutshell. Each cheeseburger is the exact same, but their value steadily reduces as you consume them. Im always curious to hear the backstory of these folks who earn plenty of money yet are seemingly unhappy. Unsurprisingly,the stories are all relatively all the same: I dreamed about living X lifestyle in the future, so I started this business/ invested in real estate to hopefully get there. On the flip side, I also have clients earning a high amount of money who are perfectly happy. They love what they do, and more importantly, they love their day-to-day. When I ask them about their backstory, their stories generally go like this: I had a lifestyle that I wanted to live today, and this business was what complimented that lifestyle. And that, my dear readers, is the key difference between living a life of full of wealth and happiness and one of just monetary wealth. Lifestyle Starts Today I learned this rather quickly in my career so Im quite grateful: Lifestyle starts today, not tomorrow. The key point I want to impress upon you throughout this entire article is that you dont have to wait 15 years to achieve financial freedom and then begin living your desired lifestyle. Instead, I want you to think about the desired lifestyle you want to live right now and figure out what steps you can begin taking to implement said lifestyle immediately. Ive never met someone who wanted to be unhappyyet many people are unhappy. And if you look closely, most of them have a common theme running throughout their life: Their desired future lifestyle dictates how they live today. They are sacrificing their present time for future happiness. Now, Im not suggesting that you drop everything and put forth little work or that you dont think about the future lifestyle youd like to achieve. What I am suggesting is that you begin implementing the lifestyle you want to live today and build everything else around you to supplement that lifestyle. Youre still going to sacrifice plenty. Youre still going to stress and wonder if youre doing the right thing. But the key difference is that we are focusing oncrafting your lifestyle today, rather than setting a target number in our minds and saying, Once I hit that, Ill begin to live the lifestyle of my dreams. Where Do We Start? Frankly, I dont really know. Im a CPA, not a guru trying to sell you my coaching program for $20,000 (I take check or creditjust kidding, of course). What I do know is that crafting a lifestyle that Ill enjoy on a day-to-day basis has been my goal from the get-go. I dont want to wait 20 years to retire and live the lifestyle of my dreams. I want to do that today. So Im going to walk you through my logic ofhow I built assets around me to supplement the lifestyle I wanted to live. Hopefully youll be able to take something away from this and implement it in your own life. The first step is to define the lifestyle you want. After my first few months working for a Big 4 accounting firm, I decided that the corporate lifestyle was not for me. I didnt understand why one must commute to an office for work that could easily be done in the comfort of my own home. I thought the whole dressing up thing just got in the way of providing high quality work. The last time I checked, a suit and tie, while studies suggest makes you more confident, dont improve your intellect nor work product. Worst of all, I didnt understand why people of high integrity and character were required to show up a 9:00 a.m. every day. If the deadlines are met, the quality of work is high, and the client is happy (the most important thing), then why does it matter when someone walks into the office? It seemed the performance measurements were backwards. I disagreed with the values of the corporate lifestyle, how they held individuals accountable, and how they measured performance. So I began to sketch out what my ideal lifestyle looked like. I knew that I wanted the flexibility to work in my pajamas at home. I knew I wanted to be able to work anywhere in the world seamlessly while traveling. And I knew that I wanted my performance to be measured by something other than whether or not I billed 1,800 hours out of the 2,080-hour work year (thats called utilization in the accounting world). I determined the best thing to do was to build assets around me that allows me to accomplish these things. The two asset classes I chose were real estate and a professional services business. But the key for living my lifestyle would be a laser focus on implementing systems that complimented my lifestyle. Building Assets and Focusing on the Systems When people focus on a number to achieve their desired lifestyle, the business systems get put on the back burner. Instead, you should be focusing on the systems you must implement in order to live the lifestyle you want today. As I mentioned, I decided that investing in real estate and running a business would both complement the lifestyle I desired to live. The problem was that real estate typically requires a hands-on approach, and professional services firms usually have offices that clients can walk intoboth of which go against my desired lifestyle of working anywhere in the world. The real estate solution was rather simple to figure out. I knew I needed properties that cash flowed quite well, as I needed all of my expenses to be covered. The cash flow would allow me to buy teammates on the ground and put the asset in auto-pilot mode, allowing me to be 100 percent virtual. I could invest in areas I visited frequently or wanted to travel to once a year, and Id require that my property manager send me a video walkthrough of my units quarterly. Related: How I Saved $20,000 in 2014 and Used it to Invest in Lifestyle Design On the buy side, Id research the citys economics like crazy to make sure the local economy was growing and not subject to undue risk. Id use Google street view to explore neighborhoods. Id place offers sight unseen and only travel to the property post-inspection. Using these desktop methods, Ive picked up two 3-unit properties. These two properties cash flow well and cover most of my monthly living expenses, though I dont actually use the cash flow for my monthly living expenses. The point is, if the going gets tough, I can rely for a short amount of time on these properties. The business solution was a bit tougher. When I hammered out what I wanted my lifestyle to look like, I knew there were very few corporate jobs that would support it. The next step was to start a business, and since I had a CPA, I naturally started a CPA firm. It was tough to figure out how to build a CPA firm that would support my lifestyle. My biggest obstacle was the preconceived notion that clients would want to walk into a CPAs office and shake his/her hand. But I knew the lifestyle I was crafting so I laid out the ground rules for my CPA firm: I will not meet clients face-to-face. Instead, well hold meetings over the phone or video calls. This goes for local clients as much as non-local.My marketing will be content rich. I will develop awesome content that people derive massive value from. A potential client will read my articles and test me out prior to ever scheduling their first consultation.I will develop business systems that will support a virtual practice. Document sharing must only be done in the cloud. I will not accept paper documents.I will hire employees and not require them to be local to me nor come into an office. They will enjoy the same lifestyle I do. This means they have to want to live the lifestyle Im living. I will also need to develop metrics that focus on results, not the amount of time an employee works. With that, I was off to the races. I started making massive strides to get content out there, and I used BiggerPockets as my growth platform. It was tough and took a lot of sacrificing, but two years later, I have a firm that supports my desired lifestyle. Conclusion My point in telling you this is that I didnt say, I want my lifestyle to be X in the future, so I must build a business to reach $Y in annual revenue. At that time, Ill be able to live the lifestyle I want to live. Instead, my method of thinking is, I want to live X lifestyle and Im going to build Y assets and systems that complement the lifestyle I want to live. With my way of thinking, you wont be putting your desired lifestyle off into some distant future point. Instead, youll start thinking of ways you can move toward living your desired lifestyle today. Sure, it takes sacrifice and hard work. It took me two years to get my business to a point where I could actually live the lifestyle I was actively trying to build. But in those two years, I had a laser focus on building a business that complemented the lifestyle I wanted to live. My virtual lifestyle was the objective; the real estate and the business were the results. Many people make the mistake of lettingtheir lifestyle be the result and their investing or their businesses the objective. Dont do that. Focus on building a lifestyle portfolio and business. Youll be much happier in the end. Were republishing this article to help out our newer readers. How are you designing a lifestyle that works for you? Do you agree with the above philosophy? Let me know your thoughts with a comment! https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/crafting-lifestyle-real-estate-business/

[contradictoryenigmas]

2018 Postmortem: 10 Questions

Hi there. It has been quite a while since I last wrote anything on Contradictory Enigmas.

*Looks at Tumblr dashboard, sees it has been over five months.*

Yeah. I would like to say the lack of posts is due to me being busy with life and moving on up. But it turned out that 2018 would be slightly worse than 2017. I’m not going to fully dive into the reasons why, but let’s just say that uncertainty played a huge role during the year. Still, I wouldn’t say that the year turned out to be a complete trash fire. I had to do some deep looking and thinking to find the bright spots, but they were there.

To cap off the year here on the blog, I’m going to revisit an exercise that I did last year: Looking through the past year through the lens of ten questions. You can check out the one I did for 2017 here.

What made up your body of work this year? Which parts are you most proud of?

The majority of my work on the freelancing side of the fence was mostly news and new car reviews/previews. I didn’t write much in terms of feature and opinion pieces as I was lacking the creative urge and energy. Looking at my list of ideas and drafts on my computer, most were either blank with the title or had something written before running out of steam.

There was one piece that did make it out of this drought. Last month, I published a piece talking about how I drove a 707 horsepower Grand Cherokee Trackhawk somewhat efficiently. It was something that I hadn’t done in quite a while; taking a vehicle out of its element and see how it would fare.

Here on Contradictory Enigmas, there are a few pieces that I’m quite proud that I was able to get out.

Barnes & Noble Pre-Postmortem allow me to look at a place that I enjoy shopping. Seeing the local store in the somewhat poor state when I wrote the piece in late winter was quite depressing. It has been slowly getting slightly better, but there are still various issues with the main office. This is a topic I would like to revisit in the coming year.

#QuitFacebook allowed me to put on my devil’s advocate hat on and consider a different angle on the mess that erupted in the spring. The piece really helped begin the process of stepping away from the platform.

I got to talk about my weird fascination with watching old Weather Channel clips on YouTube. It was surprising how much of a retro trip this was as I told the story of how I used to watch it while sitting in the back bedroom of my Grandmother’s house. I still do watch those old clips from time to time or put it on in the background to provide some ambient noise.

Dealing with a World on Fire is a piece I look at time and time again. It is a reminder to me that it is ok to step away from the world at large and take care of yourself - something I have been a doing a lot since the summer.

What were your top 5 moments of the year?

This is the hardest question for me to answer this year as at first glance, there wasn’t much that I would be considering being a *Top Five* moment. But doing some deep thinking brought forth some.

Finally finding and seeing a psychiatrist

Going out to various dinners to try new foods

Being invited to two automotive press events towards the end of year

Publishing some blog pieces that started from a writing journal

Working to give me more space to relax

What are you really glad is over?

Aside from 2018 in general? I know I said that last year, but I feel that it still stands.

As I mentioned in the beginning, uncertainty played a huge role. It felt like I was getting all of these various issues with work, money, health issues, and life beginning to stack up like a Jenga tower. I kept waiting for the one piece to cause the tower to topple over. But somehow, this tower somehow stood tall.

As the year is coming to a close, the uncertainty I’m been dealing with has come down a fair amount. Not to point where I can put it behind, but at least it isn’t front and center like it was for the majority of the year

How are you different today than you were 365 days ago?

Like last year, it is a mix of good and bad.

On the bad, I wasn't able to accomplish many of the goals I had set out to do. I wasn't trying to accomplish anything big or impossible*. Many of the goals were small such as trying to mediate, eating slightly better, getting out of the house more, etc. But various factors that were out of my control would conspire and cause me not to accomplish many of these things.

It has also been tough to sit down and actually watch a movie/TV show. I can't remember the last time I was able to relax and focus on something that wasn't on YouTube. Nothing against YouTube, but I've been trying to figure out why it was possible for me to binge through a number of videos, but cannot do the same with Netflix or what I have on my media server.

For the good, I have been re-diagnosed** with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). That may seem a bit strange, but it helps explains some of the issues I have been dealing with such as not being able to focus on one task, having my mind wander, forgetting various things - the list goes on. I've started to see a psychiatrist and been put on some medication to help me get various aspects under control.

Another good point is how much I have been trying to push myself out of my comfort zone. I have been trying to say yes to doing more events. Recently, I went to a special dinner with my parents that featured a fusion of Chinese and Vietnamese cuisine. The food was amazing and I was shocked by how much I enjoyed. Calling myself a picky eater is an understatement and something I've been trying to work towards over the year.

Is there anything you achieved that you forgot to celebrate?

Somehow I was able to keep applying to jobs. Doing this is very stressful because you don't know if you will hear anything; begin second-guessing whether or not everything is just right; wonder whether if its worth the time and effort being put in, and dealing with rejection. That's before the madness of the interview process.

I made a lot of progress in how I write my resume and cover letters; expanded my searches, and become somewhat decent in interviews. Hopefully, this pays off in 2019.

What have you changed your perspective on this year?

That it is ok to let things go. Whether it be ideas for possible stories, a book that I’m not enjoying, or someone on social media that is annoying me, you can put them off to the side to either revisit another or just put down and walk away. This has been tough as I’m one of those people who tries to see things through the end, which can result in something in disappointment. But I’m slowly making progress on this.

Who are the people that really came through for you this year?    

My therapist has been a big help throughout the year. Without her encouragement, I wouldn’t have gone out and get psych evaluation to determine whether or not I had ADHD. This has also been the place where I have I spilled my guts on various thoughts and events that have happened. Seeing her helps me get a better understanding of myself.

The other people are some close friends that I try to talk on the phone every month or so. One of the downsides of working at home is the lack of interaction with other people. I wish I could get out more, but various issues and other stuff prevent me. The calls with the small group of people help me feel somewhat connected to the world

What were some pieces of media that defined your year?

Ni No Kuni 2: I spent so much time playing this RPG, over 80 hours during the fall. Everything about this game from the story, characters, and music just clicked with me. The Studio Ghibli art style really makes the game stand out. I cannot wait to dive back in once the DLC comes out and sink more time into it.

The Nakano Thrift Shop by Hiromi Kawakami: Delving into the lives of workers in a thrift shop may not seem like a good starting place for a book. But Kawakami makes the characters from the store owner that is reflective and philosophical about the about the world to the clerk who is just trying to figure out who she is. Reading through this book, I felt like I could sit down and enjoy the conversation going on while looking at the various goods.

Hammer Head: The Making of Carpenter by Nina MacLaughlin: This book made me want to get out and build/fix something because of the pleasure of doing something physical. Being able to see something to come life before your eyes that you created.

What will you be leaving behind in 2018?

Trying to feel responsible for everything. This has been brought to the light by all of the various uncertainties that 2018 has decided to drop on my head. I know that my personality likes to have control and know what is happening to give me some ease, but life doesn’t work like that. I’m slowly accepting that a lot of things are just out of my hands and it is ok.

What do you hope to accomplish in 2019?

My focus for the beginning of the year is to get myself back on track and get things in order. This includes some financial, health and personal stuff. Once I reach a point that I feel everything in order, then I will return to something that I mentioned last year.

The big goal for 2018 is figuring out who the hell I am.  In 2016, I felt that I lost the knowledge of who I was. Sure I am a human who is in their late 20s and writes about the auto industry and other bits. But other than those pieces, everything else about myself seemed to fade into black.

This past year has seen me pick up the various bits and pieces of myself in an effort to figure out who I am. It’s a complicated puzzle where I have some of the pieces and trying to piece them together. There are a number of pieces that are missing - they could be somewhere else waiting to be unearthed or have faded away.

Next year is where I begin to put the puzzle together by working with the pieces that I have and also creating new ones to help fill in the gaps. I know that I will never be able to complete the puzzle, but I want to feel like that I have made some significant process, not starting at a giant pile and wondering what should I do.

It is a very ambitious goal, but my plan is to break this up into small pieces. Trying new hobbies, getting out of the house more, putting myself in somewhat uncomfortable situations where I have an easy way out, etc.

That’s my 2018 in a nutshell. A bit of bad, but there were some good parts.

*You can make the reasonable argument that trying to figure out who I am was a bit ambitious for 2018. My plan at the time was to do various small things over the course of the year that would build up towards the overall goal. **Re-diagnosed? Yes. I was originally diagnosed with ADHD when I was about three to four years old.

[365footballorg-blog]

Armchair Analyst: Good, Bad & Ugly of the most recent USMNT camp

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October 17, 20189:45AM EDT

The latest two friendlies – a 4-2 loss to Colombia and a 1-1 draw with Peru – are in the books. Given the stakes of the game (null), where we are in the cycle (hella early) and the roster called in (experimental), none of what happened should be keeping anybody up at night for good or for bad. They were just friendlies.

That said, there’s always something to learn if you’ve got an open mind and a keen eye. So let’s take a look at the Good, the Bad & the Ugly from the last 180 minutes of USMNT play.

The Good

• Dave Sarachan saved his best for last. When he took over a year ago his mandate was more or less 1) to breathe some life back into the program by playing as many kids as possible, 2) to sort out the defense at least a little bit and 3) to get his players to play with pride and toughness.

For the first eight games of his tenure he read that as “play a bunch of defensive midfielders – even if they’re out of position – and very few attackers.” What, exactly, did we learn from games in which Tyler Adams was at winger?

He shed his overly defensive ways for the last two games and while that meant the U.S. got drilled against Los Cafeteros, I don’t care. By playing pretty much every player in their best spot, we learned a lot about who could compete at that level. By doing the same against Peru, we learned about who could compete at that level. These games were fun and good and an extremely valuable couple of data points.

Would’ve been nice to get the win against Peru, but I don’t blame the coach for that.

• The kids the kids the kids the kids. Even without Adams, Weston McKennie and Christian Pulisic, these last two games were revelatory (and don’t forget the game before that, against Mexico, in which the 19-year-old Adams scored the game-winner off of a perfect cross from 21-year-old left back Antonee Robinson).

What do I mean by “revelatory?” This:

omfgggg pic.twitter.com/l8d1eFhpfg

— Arthur Kogan (@TheRealArturK) October 17, 2018

That’s 23-year-old Kellyn Acosta to 18-year-old Josh Sargent to 19-year-old Jonathan Amon to 18-year-old Tim Weah. It didn’t quite come off, which is a shame because if it had, it would’ve been one of the very best goals the U.S. scored this decade.

There were little moments like this in attack scattered throughout the last two games. Sargent’s ability to link play both through midfield and in the final third is advanced for a kid who’s only every played five meaningful games against adults; Amon has a gift for making the first defender miss and his ideas with the ball are very good; Weah not only made the play of the game against Colombia, but he appears to be on his way toward becoming a DaMarcus Beasley-esque defensive presence on the wing.

I’m gonna add 20-year-old FC Dallas right back Reggie Cannon to this group as well. Not for a single second, in his debut, did he look out of place, and the few times he got forward he was able to become part of the play.

The end product mostly wasn’t there on this night, but guess what? I don’t care. You play these tough games with these kids at this part of the cycle with the hope that they will learn from them, and be ready to provide more end product six months from now, and 12 months from now, and 24 months from now and beyond that.

I saw seeds of creative attacking play, and I saw moments of real chemistry. It was good.

• With all due respect to Sargent, the best player on the pitch for the U.S. on Tuesday was Aaron Long. He was smooth and unfazed even while putting out fires and defending in isolation all throughout the first half. Then in the second half, with the USMNT determined to get on the ball a little bit more, he was the one who started most sequences, calmly distributing through the Peruvian press.

Most of those sequences died in midfield, which we’ll get to in a minute. But Long – who, like Cannon and Amon, was making his international debut – walked out onto the field against a top 20-ish team in the world and put forth the best game an American center back has played this year.

If Long can replicate this next month against England or Italy, one of John Brooks or Matt Miazga is going to have to fight for their job.

The Bad

• Michael Bradley’s first 70 minutes against Colombia were really good, and his last 20 minutes were the opposite of that. The veteran tasked with locking down a result let Falcao slip right past him and into the box for what proved to be the game-winning goal.

Then on Tuesday, Cannon was subbed out after 84 really solid minutes for veteran right back DeAndre Yedlin. One-hundred-twenty seconds later, this happened:

For both veterans, the defensive lapses represented a worrying continuation of their respective club form.

There’s maybe nobody in the world who needs an offseason more than Bradley, who’s basically played every available minute since he was 17 years old and looks like he’s carrying all of them out there whenever he sets foot on the pitch. He can still bring calmness to the game and spray passes better than any d-mid in the US pool, but watch him (try to) move and, compared to the player he was 12 or 18 or 24 months ago… it’s night and day.

I question whether he’ll ever get his legs back.

With Yedlin, I’m on the verge of giving up the ghost re: him ever being a conscientious defender. He’s 25, so definitely not a kid anymore. He’s played 200-plus professional games, 65 of them in the English Premier League. Why is he still falling asleep at the back post? Why is he still getting pulled into no-man’s-land?

On this roster, he should be a leader – someone who sets the tone and makes veteran plays that the kids don’t even see unfolding. He wasn’t that at all.

• It was always going to be a tall task in any of these last four games, and if at the start of September you’d offered me a 1-2-1 record with a -3 goal differential against Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Peru, I’d have taken it.

But yeah, the old complaint is there: I’d like to have seen more meaningful possession through midfield rather than hurried, nervous, scattered play. It was especially lacking in the first half against Peru.

If Gregg Berhalter takes over next month – and at this point, it’d be kind of shocking if he didn’t – it’ll be interesting to see how much of Columbus Crew SC’s calm, two-touch soccer he tries to bring to the national team. Given the player pool, maybe it’s just not worth it.

But I actually suspect it is. Let me put it this way: Counterattacking is fine, and we should do a lot of it. But good-to-great counterattacking teams, in any league or international competition, tend to end up with 40 to 45 percent of the ball. The U.S. against Peru had 31.6 percent.

I’m still fine with the result, but how much more satisfying would Tuesday have been if they’d been able to just put their foot on the ball for the final 15 minutes and kill the game off? If you can’t do that, you’re going to invite teams forward, and if you invite teams forward, you’re leaving yourself open for back-breaking last-minute goals at the back post.

The Ugly

• Antonee Robinson’s night was a STRUGGLE against Colombia, just as it was against Brazil in September. Ben Sweat’s first half was a nightmare against Peru.

Robinson bounced back with a strong sub appearance, including that game-winning assist, against Mexico. Sweat bounced back with a defensively competent and occasionally useful offensive performance in the second half against Peru. Anyone who looks at the left back position and decides that all hope is lost is being ridiculous.

One of the best things Sarachan did was leaving Sweat in there. Dude played through his yips and was useful in the second half.https://t.co/5hXrnY22M8

— Matthew Doyle (@MattDoyle76) October 17, 2018

Anyone who looks at it and says it’s a position of strength is being equally ridiculous. Robinson needs to develop some smarts in a league not known for emphasizing that, Sweat needs to bottle what he had in the second half and make sure he brings it to bear for the full 90 whenever he’s on the field for club or country, Danilo Acosta needs to find a team that will play him, and maybe Nick Lima (who’s right-footed, but is equally comfortable at left back) needs a look as well.

Regardless, unless George Bello is about to make a Cannon-esque ascent in 2018, this is an area of concern.

• Wil Trapp did a nice job of organizing the US midfield – there’s a reason Peru didn’t have a shot on goal until the 70th minute, and it was because the U.S. lines were tight and connected even after the countless turnovers that plagued the team.

What he didn’t do was win the ball much, at all, in the center of the pitch, and that puts a hard cap on his usefulness as a player, especially with younger guys like Adams and Russell Canouse coming through the ranks. Moreover, Trapp’s biggest strength has always been his ability to organize the game by spraying possession from side to side and eventually playing his team into the attacking third.

On Tuesday, he wasn’t able to do that:

By no means was this entirely his fault. Sweat’s struggles meant that Trapp was constantly pulled out wide to help shut down Peruvian attacks; none of the other midfielders could put a foot on the ball and control the game even a little bit; the whole endeavor was hamstrung by a lack of urgency to push the game forward, which meant that even when the USMNT were in good spots they were hesitant to do anything except cycle uselessly.

It happens.

But Trapp is 25 – not a kid – and while he’s not the type of veteran that Yedlin is, he was nonetheless one of the older players in this camp and was expected to bring some sort of order to the chaos, and he did not. If he’s unable to do that in the long run, he will find himself looking up the depth chart at others very, very soon.

• Bringing Sweat back on for the second half was one of the best things that Sarachan did, since it led to 45 solid minutes for a previously nervous player at a position of need. Maybe he’ll never wear the Red, White & Blue again, but (more likely) when he does wear it again in January camp, we’ll all see a more confident and competent player. It was a good piece of man management.

So was benching Kenny Saief for this game:

We assumed COL were targeting robinson but really they just went after the weakest entry point in the 442. After the goal dave moved saief right (instead of telling him to play real defense). COL found him there too. Then it’s dominoes pic.twitter.com/43UmYOQfC3

— constable velasquez (@away_goals) October 15, 2018

Click through and look at that whole thread, with clips, of Saief’s lack of defensive effort against Colombia. That’s unacceptable from any player at any age, but for a 24-year-old – again, not a kid – who plays for a UEFA Champions League team?

I had high hopes for Saief heading into this camp and was hugely disappointed by what we saw last week. Hopefully the message has been sent and we’ll see better from him the next time he’s given the opportunity to fight for a role with this team.

• Same for Julian Green, I hope. He got stuck in on a tackle against Colombia and it led to Wood’s goal. He pulled out of a tackle (you can hear Ian Darke commenting upon it at the start of the clip above) against Peru and it led to a goal conceded. That’s not how you win a job.

Green is, from my point of view, still a man without a real position with this group. He gets into great spots, but doesn’t have the speed to be a pure winger, doesn’t have the technique to eliminate players off the dribble, and doesn’t have anything close to the vision needed to be a playmaker.

The good news? If he can get healthy, the next time the U.S. step on a field it’ll likely be Pulisic picking the ball up in those spots. And if that doesn’t put a smile on your face, you just don’t know how to be happy.

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Armchair Analyst: Good, Bad & Ugly of the most recent USMNT camp was originally published on 365 Football

[lavendernight67]

Tales of Boob Squad - Ch5: The intro

A/N: A short peice on how Avaria became a Gaurdian.

Came straight out of my headspace. Not based on any gameplay at all. Complete fiction.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Eyes up, gaurdian!"

she woke with a start. "What the heck?"

Something... A tiny, what looked like a very pointy orb hovered just in front of her. "Yeeeeek!" The girl let out a squeal of fright and scrambled back. The... whatever it was hovered closer slowly, it's... eye? looked around, as though afraid.

"I'm a ghost. well, your ghost." It hovered a moment before adding "You've been dead a very long time, so... there might be a lot of things you don't understand."

She looked around. She seemed to be in the ancient remains of some sort of city. But she couldn't remember. Anything. Off in the distance, a roar of some kind sounded.

Her 'Ghost' or whatever it was whirled, then turned back to her quickly. "They've found us. We need to move. I didn't bring you back just to have you die again." It whizzed towars her, then seemed to fragment and disappear. It's voice then sounded almost inside of her ear, startling her again. "I'm still with you."

a moment's hesitation then, "get moving!"

She couldn't remember who she was or why she was here, wherever here was, but whatever that sound was, she didn't want to face it. She stumbled to her feet, and started moving towards what looked like the ancient remains of an old building.

Her Ghost sounded again in her ear. "There should be an airfield 5 files south of here." She stopped when she reached a dilapilated wall. "And how the heck am I suppoed to walk five miles?"

The Ghost made a bleeping noise, then "don't worry, I'm sure you can make it."

"Yeah, in, like, two hours." Avaria sighed.

Her ghost happily replied "My estimation is fourty five minutes, twenty seven seconds."

Avaria sighed. Loudly.

An hour later, Avaria trudged onto the tarmac of the old shipyard. She looked up and whistled. "Wow, I've never seen this before."

"Really? weren't you alive during the golden age?"

"Ummm, no."

"Hmm, interesting."

"Interesting? That's all you can say?" A bit of annoyance crept into her voice.

"Well, I *was* searching for you for a *very* long time."

"Yeeeah, okay." "Let's just get out of here." She was tired from all the walking. No time to argue with the little pointy ball now.

"We need to find you a ship..." The ghost floated off, scanning this ship and that, until it finaly exclaimed "Aha!"

Avaria summoned what energy she had left after the miles-long trip and jogged up.

It was a spaceship.

A Spaceship!

"Whuuuuut!?"

The ghost ignnored her, floating up to scan it. "It seems to be fully functional..."

"Wait, a spaceship? what the... Since when do people just.. go to space!?"

It ignored her some more while doing that strange phasey thing where it passed through objects. Avaria started to back away. Aliens AND spaceships, she didn't like this.

"Am I dreaming?"

The ghost waited a half a second before reponding "No, I assure you that you are not." It continued to do.. whatever it was doing. The reddish-blonde looked up at the ship, about to tell it "Yeah, that's just what a dream would say" when the ship sputtered to life.

As if that weren't startling enough, the roar from earlier sounded much closer, and a big huge ugly... Thing with four arms climbed over the skeleton of one of the ships.

"Oh CRAP."

Avaria eyed the creature and it's two smaller minions, taking a step back. But before she could insult the alien orb-thing, whatever it was that had gotten her into this situation, it transmatted her into the ship.

"It won't break orbit, but at least it can fly. I just hope it can get us back to the city."

"Great. So if I'm not killed by big bad 'n ugly back there I get to die in an explosion at fifty-thousand feet. Fan-fricken-tastic. thanks."

The ghost, floating next to her, turned to her "I know you are a little bit confused just now, but there is no need to be insulting."

Avaria gave it a sidelong glance. "sorry, I'm just, you know, trying to get used to being dead for over a hundred or so years then getting brought back by an alien something-or-another. but, I guess you'll explain all that to me later?"

"No, the speaker wil."

"the who?"

"the... oh, nevermind."

the ship went into warp.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As they descended through the thick clouds, the top of a large building came into view. On the uppermost level, towers and even trees became visible. Avaria whistled and leaned forward to get a better view. It glided in, coming to a stop to hover just above the center of the open space, and the ghost transmatted her down. It set the ship's auto-pilot before appearing next to her. The ship glided up to the hangar.

"Welcome to the last safe city on Earth... The only place the traveler can still protect." it said.

Avaria turned to look in the same direction, and there was a huge, white orb floating in the sky.

"it took centuries to build. Now, we're counting every day it stands."

"huh?" came the intellegent reply. It sounded like her ghost sighed. Then it started to explain.

"Several hundred years ago, the traveler came to this planet. That was the beginning of the golden age. Great cities were built on Venus and Mars. Mercury became a garden world, and human lifespans tripled."

"Bummer. And I missed it."

Her Ghost continued. "But the Traveler had an enemy. The darkness that had followed it across space, chasing it for so long." The little white... thing made a bleeping sound before continuing, almost regretfully, "The darkness destroyed everything."

Avaria looked into the distance and bit her lip. Everything, all known civilization, it was gone.

She finally said "Well, except for the city, right?" She looked at her ghost. It beeped, as though that were a reply, and flew over her shoulder heading behind her.

Instead of voicing all the questions she had running through her head, millions of them, she turned to take in this tower she had been deposited on top of (and probably marooned, where had that ship gone to, anyway?)

"This tower is where the Gaurdians live." her ghost told her. She looked around, going up the small set of steps into the courtyard. Her ghost made that beeping noise, then said "The Gaurdians are the protectors of the City. They seek out and destroy the darkness, so the Traveler can be healed."

"Wait, so this..." she motion to the orb "Big white ball is some sort of living thing."

"mm..yes, and no." another beep.

The ghost paused, then said "I think you should go talk to the speaker."

She looked around. "ooookay, which way?"

"Head to the north tower."

Avaria gave her ghost a look.

"Oh, right." The ghost did that scatter-thing, and said in her ear "there." A square popped up in her field of vision, off to her left. "Now you should be able to find it."

She jogged towards the hall leading in that direction.

When she rounded the last bend in the hall, it opened up into another open space, fenced off, with a stairs going up to the left. Her locator showed she was supposed to go to the cylindrical section seperated from the terrace by a walkway.

A large... scanner thing, she wasn't sure what it was, was moving back and forth, generating a grid outline of some sort of orb. She guessed it was some kind of representation of that Traveler thing floating over the city.

Behind her, a deep voice sounded. "Greetings, Gaurdian."

She turned and started, backing up a step. A figure in white with black accents, some sort of robe and a really freaky looking mask that just screamed "Alien!" had been standing on the stairs behind her.

"I did not mean to startle you." He said politely. "I am the speaker."

She just nodded wordlessly. How much stranger would this dream get? (She had the funny and awful feeling at the same time that it really wasn't a dream, it was probably just her brain trying to deal with the post-Apocalyptic world she had just been dropped into.

a small part of her was angry, really. The saying was supposed to go "Life sucks, then you die." not "Life Sucks then you die then you get brought back AFTER the friggin world ended to keep it from ending AGAIN and miss all the good parts (like the Golden age) in-between.

She just wanted to throw herself off the edge of this tower.

But, she had been given a purpose. A small part of her wanted to cheer "Hey look at me, I'm a superhero!" but enough of that thinking crap, right? she just wanted to get this over with and go have a beer somewhere.

The machine clicked off and the curved bars of the gyroscopic contraption slid to the sides, giving her a clearer view of the Traveler floating out over the city. The Speaker continued as he walked down the steps.

"There was a time when we were much more powerful. But that was long ago."

More powerful than what?, Avaria wondered.

"Until it wakes and finds it's voice, I am the one who speaks for the traveler."

He walked towards the Traveler as he continued.

"You must have no end of questions, Gaurdian."

He didn't see as she nodded vigorously behind him.

"In it's dying breath, the Traveler created the ghosts..." Hers whizzed past, up towards the hologram, looked at it with what seemed to be sadness. Or possibly hope. It's little eye-thing flitted back and forth, as though searching for some hint of activity. But there was none.

"to seek out those who can wield it's light, as a weapon."

Avaria turned and glanced at him...it?. What was going on? and if there was a battle going on, she wasn't sure she could just go out and start fighting these... whatever they were. He continued, oblivious to her internal dialogue.

"Gaurdians, to protect us. And do what the traveler itself no longer can."

Her ghost floated back to hover next to her.

"What happened to it?" she asked.

"I could tell you of the great battle centuries ago. How the traveler was crippled." The speaker took a few more steps slowly forward. Avaria followed, curious now. "I could tell you of the power of the darkness. Its ancient enemy. There are many tales told throughout the city to frighten children. Lately those tales have stopped." he halted.

"Now, the children are frightened anyway."

Yep. Cue apocalypse number two. Drat.

She looked at the floor. Whatever was going on, there was a real struggle. Humankind had been driven to the brink of extinction, yet somehow, mysteriously, survived. Now that group was -no-, HAD been developing this fighting force to push back against whatever was trying to kill off the last remainders of humanity.

The speaker turned to face her and stated "the Darkness is coming back."

It was like a punch to the gut. She couldn't just sit back and let everyone, herself included, die.

"We will not survive it this time."

she wanted to say "Only if it can get to us", but left that unspoken. Her ghost said "It's armies surround us. The Fallen are just the beginning."

Oh, so there WERE aliens after all. oh joy. Not.

This was NOT gonna fly. She knew she had to do *something*. Whatever she could. Determination crept into her mind. Fight. Survive. Win.

"What can I do?"

The speaker walked towards her. "You must push back the darkness. Gaurdians are fighting on Earth and beyond."

She turned to look at it.

"I only hope he chose wisely." the speaker stated, and walked away, back towards the steps. Avaria crossed her arms. She wanted to mutter something under her breath about rude comments, but didn't out of respect. Then she smiled when her Ghost replied "I did. I'm sure of it."

As they walked out, her Ghost added "We're in this together now."

She nodded. "right."

-------------------------------------------

End notes:

So yeah, this chapter actually got away from me. I had a smalll conversation in my mind between my character and her Ghost, which didn't get written. But It'll probably get covered in the next chapter.

And hopefully I'll be able to get back to the comedic stuff.

I know I went a little off-script when Avaria woke up, I sort of wrote it out of memory, but then I remembered not everyone woke up in the cosmodrome. I mean, there's hundreds of Gaurdians, right?

Anyway, I love reviews, also. It's my fuel to keep writing.

More soon!

[type2diabetestreatments-blog]

Welcome to Ask D'Mine: Diabetes Q&A Like Never Before

New Post has been published on https://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-mellitus/welcome-to-ask-dmine-diabetes-qa-like-never-before/

Welcome to Ask D'Mine: Diabetes Q&A Like Never Before

You asked for it, you got it! OK, maybe it was mostly our idea... but we think you're going to like it:

Say hello to our spicy new brand of diabetes advice column we're calling Ask D'Mine. This series will be hosted by my good friend, veteran type 1, diabetes author and community educator Wil Dubois — with occasional input from Allison and myself.

"Need help navigating life with diabetes? Email us at AskDMine@diabetesmine.com"

This is a place to send all your quirky or potentially embarrassing questions, behind-the-scenes curiosities, lifestyle queries, or even ethical dilemmas related to life with diabetes. In short: Don't know who else to ask? Ask D'Mine!

We're starting this first edition with our DISCLAIMER (look for it at the end of upcoming editions):

This is not a medical advice column. We are PWDs freely and openly sharing the wisdom of our collected experiences — our been-there-done-that knowledge from the trenches. But we are not MDs, RNs, NPs, PAs, CDEs, or partridges in pear trees. Bottom line: we are only a small part of your total prescription. You still need the professional advice, treatment, and care of a licensed medical professional.

So here goes:

Becky from Minnesota, type 1, asks: This last winter storm really freaked me out (not to mention the disaster in Japan!) I was snowed in for the better part of a week. I was fine, but what if I had run out of insulin? My insurance company won't let me refill any of my medications until I'm nearly out. Does Ask D'Mine have any suggestions?

Wil @Ask D'Mine answers: There oughta be a law... but there isn't. Insurance companies have been getting more and more iron-fisted when it comes to refills, and generally speaking you can't refill until you are down to five days of meds. So my first thought is that if you ordered refills like clockwork every 25 days, you might be able to add a five-day cushion each month, which would give you 60 days of emergency meds by the end of the year. Sound too good (and too simple) to be true? I called a bunch of pharmacists and found out that most insurance companies generally peg refills to calendar dates based on the original prescription date, so you can't effectively just "pick up" an extra couple of days each month. *sigh* Those #&$% insurance folks are always one step ahead of us.

This means your doctor is your best bet, and has at least two aces up his or her white sleeves: The first ace is samples. Depending on what meds you're on, and which drug reps have dropped by lately, it might be possible to score a few extra vials or pens of insulin from your doc just by asking. If you are able to do this, be sure to "rotate your stock." In other words, don't just set the sample a side for a rainy.... errrr... snowy day and let it go bad. Use the sample right away, and set aside the prescription from the pharmacy. The next month, set aside the new prescription and use the one you set aside the month before, and so forth. Comprendo?

The second ace up those white sleeves is an Rx pad. Ask your doc for an emergency prescription. It's well within your doctor's power to write you a 'script for a month's supply above and beyond the usual. The only problem with this approach is that when you go to get this filled, your insurance company will likely fight it on the basis that they've already paid for your requisite meds for the month. There'll be some back and forth and your doc's nurse will need to do some paperwork called a "prior authorization," so buy her flowers or candy as appropriate for her trouble.

Then just sit back and let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Michelle from Texas, type 1, writes: My boss's husband was diagnosed with diabetes last week. He's overweight, in his early 40s, and has two relatives with diabetes. His fasting was 323 and A1C is 14. He was put on two orals (Metformin and another one my boss can't remember the name of).

I told her I'm surprised his doctor didn't put him on insulin to at least get his numbers down faster. I gave her a meter, but he hasn't been testing because the doctor told him to wait until he went to the education class. I told her that's a load of shit and that he should be testing at least after every meal. They're calling around for an appointment with an endo. So with that tiny bit of information, is an orals-only treatment plan called for?

Wil @Ask D'Mine answers: Thanks for writing! Well, there is a lot of ground to cover here so let me dive right in. Middle-aged, overweight, and swimming in a gene pool full of diabetes is the classic recipe for type 2 diabetes. That, coupled with the fact your boss's hubby didn't go into a coma with that wicked high A1C, is pretty good evidence that he's been diagnosed T2.

The reason that matters is that oral meds are commonly used as first-line therapy for treating T2, so I wouldn't assume his doc is a complete idiot for going that route.

However, most pills for diabetes will buy you about a 1% drop in A1C. That means putting the poor guy on two pills could be expected to drop his A1C from 14 to 12; so we still need to make him a reservation at the dialysis center. Of course there is more to the story than just pills. If the dude has been drinking soda and noshing candy bars, even some modest diet changes could lower his blood sugar much more than any pill could hope to.

So, as to an insulin start.... well...

OK, here's the deal. Getting someone down "faster" doesn't necessarily mean better. Remember that the risk of a high-BG coma (called DKA) is remote for T2s and the tissue damage from high blood sugar is gradual, while on the other side of the coin quickly changing the blood sugar environment can stress the heart. Slow and steady is a legitimate way to win the T2 race.

Also, insulin can be tricky to teach, dangerous to use, and can have a heck of a negative impact on a patient's mental state, as we all know. If the doc believes he can get this man's diabetes in control within six months without insulin, then it probably is a bad idea to push insulin right away.

As to the issue of not testing, it may surprise you that I'm not sure this is a load of shit at all. The missing piece of the puzzle is the med your boss can't remember the name of. Look, our new T2's BG is currently high as a kite. Testing out of the gate will only confirm this. Test after test. Day after day. Frankly, testing is going to depress the shit out of him, and that's not a great way to start out your diabetes career. The only reason for him to test right now is if the mystery pill carries a risk of low blood sugar. There's a medicine chest full of oral drugs out there for diabetes. A few of them carry the risk of low blood sugar, but many do not.

On top of that, there's probably very little to learn by having him test after meals at this point. We know his fasting BG is a whopping 323. Well, at least one time it was. We can't say for sure if that's typical. With an A1C at 14, his average blood sugar for the last three months is 355 mg/dL, which to me suggests he's very high but somewhat stable. If he were shooting up even more after meals, I'd expect a greater difference between the fasting sugar and the average sugar.

As to the endo, frankly, endo's are part of the type 1 playbook. Most T2s don't have one and don't benefit from having one. On the surface, going off the details we have, it sounds like the doc did OK. He went straight to two oral agents and got the guy signed up for education. The doc probably also told him to give up smoking, avoid stress, and eat nothing but tofu and cottage cheese. But it really didn't matter what the doc said, because everything thing that follows that initial "Mr. Jones, you have diabetes" just disappears into a fog for the patient, anyway.

Medication on board. Education in the pipeline. Instructions to the patient not to test until he can understand how to test and what the numbers mean. Check!

My verdict: rather than a load of shit, probably a good start.

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

Type 2 Diabetes Treatment Type 2 Diabetes Diet Diabetes Destroyer Reviews Original Article

[type2diabetestreatments-blog]

Ask D'Mine: Weighty Matters

New Post has been published on http://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-mellitus/ask-dmine-weighty-matters/

Ask D'Mine: Weighty Matters

Happy Saturday! Or maybe not so happy if you're dealing with the weight struggles that some of our readers are writing in about this week. Got the dieting blues? We hear you. Please take a gander at this week's edition of Ask D'Mine, hosted by veteran type 1, diabetes author and community educator Wil Dubois.

Need help navigating life with diabetes? Email us at AskDMine@diabetesmine.com

Debbie from Washington, type 2, writes: I've had diabetes for about 15 years. I maintained my weight fairly well, maybe 15 lbs. over ideal, until I eventually started insulin. I gained 40 lbs. in about 6 weeks and my weight just keeps going up as does my need for more and more insulin. I am 5'3" and weigh 250 lbs. I have bad knees and this extra weight makes it very difficult to walk or exercise. I went to Disneyland last year and had to be pushed around in a wheelchair for much of the time (devastating). I must lose weight!! Can you recommend supplements that may help in my endeavor? Diets, meal plans, anything that might help would greatly be appreciated. Please help me.

Wil@Ask D'Mine answers: Ohmygosh, that Disneyland story almost made me cry. That's awful, and I'm so sorry to hear about your troubles. I've got a couple of ideas that might work, but first some background: Weight matters. Too much weight is hard on the heart, hard on the knees, hard on insulin resistance, and hard on the ego.

The medical types use something called the body mass index, or BMI, to classify the relative health risks of various weight-to-height ratios. It's a far from perfect system, but it least it gives us a vocabulary to use when talking about how serious someone's weight is. So I ran your BMI here and got a score 44.3. Now, anything above 30 is a red light when it comes to living long and prospering. So yeah... Umm... yours is pretty bad. In fact, you fall into the rudely named category of "extreme obesity."

By the way, as a complete side note, I was stunned to hear how quickly you went from basically OK to disasterville. Weight gain is often seen with insulin starts, and the question of whether insulin causes weight gain, or if weight gain is a side effect of reigning in high blood sugar, or a combination of both, is a controversial hotly contended subject amongst insulinologists (OK, I just made that word up) and waaaaaaaay beyond the scope of today's column. Today we're just gonna focus on how to get the frickin' weight back off of you; and to that end we need to understand how extra weight happens.

But first we need to talk about cars.

I drive a Jeep. I love my Jeep. It can go pretty much anywhere, regardless of whether there is even a road to anywhere or not. But my Jeep uses quite a bit of fuel to do so. Even out on the open pavement at 85 miles per hour... Uh... I mean 75 miles per hour, of course... I only get 22 miles per gallon. So I trade spectacular off-road performance for a hefty dent in the wallet. My tree-hugger friend (I only have one of those) drives a Prius and gets something like twice the gas mileage I do. Of course she can get stuck in a garden-variety mud puddle, too. And then she'll need to be rescued by someone like me, in a Jeep.

Anyway, my point here is that the whole your-mileage-may-vary thing is true not just of cars, but of human bodies, too. In general, the human body gobbles up around 2,000 calories per day. But unlike cars, if you put too much gas in the tank, instead of dribbling out the excess fuel onto your feet, the extra fuel is converted to fat and stored for a rainy day.

So if you eat more than you burn, you put on weight. And it doesn't take much extra, either. Consider this: If you eat 10 lousy calories more per day more than you need, you'll put on one pound by the end of the year. 100 calories more per day buys you ten pounds. And so forth. It doesn't take much more than you need to give you real trouble.

To lose weight you need to take in less than you burn. That forces the body to draw on those rainy-day fat reserves. So, in theory, cutting your calorie intake by 10 less than you need melts a pound in a year; 100 less than you need melts ten pounds in a year, and so forth.

So, how to go about cutting those calories?

Now, I haven't seen any evidence to convince me that any of the "supplements" are really going to help you lose weight, so let's talk diet. Yeah. I know, I know. The word "die" is in diet and it's easier to change your gender than your diet. But, really, diets are just different approaches to reducing calorie intake; and that's what we need to do to get the extra pounds off you.

So here are my favorite diets: the smaller plate diet; the turn-off-the-f*ing-TV diet; the bear-trap-in-front-of-the-fridge-at-night diet; the measure-the-damn-carbs diet; the exploding seconds plate diet; and the refrigerator-ectomy diet.

And yes. Of course. I'm writing a book on each of these diets in hopes of creating the next big fad, cashing in on it, and retiring to Aruba on my royalties. (Actually, I've never been to Aruba, and I don't know if I'd even like it. But I digress...)

Bottom line: You need to eat less, and you gotta trick your mind into being happy eating less. So... Look at your portion sizes. You need to keep them smallish, and smaller plates can help you do that... Don't let your mind be distracted while eating. It's a proven fact that folks who eat in front of the TV eat more than folks eating at tables with the TV off... If you snack at night, make sure it is very low calorie. Think rice cakes or fresh veggies... Use the proper portions of high-carb sides. Did you know a "proper" portion of rice is only a third of a cup? Measure it... Wait at least 15 minutes before having seconds. And it would be better if you never had seconds at all. Ever. Oh, and no cheating and putting two servings on your plate in the first place!

It's hard, especially at first. But to lose weight, you need to put less fuel in the tank. Just keep your eye on the prize. Think how much better you'll feel when you are back down to 15 pounds over ideal!

Oh and one last thing: If you fall off the wagon, just get up, dust off your jeans, and jump back on again. Failure happens. Just don't stay in a state of failure.

PS: of course there's something in the medicine cabinet that has been shown to keep blood sugar in check and help you lose weight: The GLP-1 meds Byetta and Victoza. Neither of these popular injectables are magic bullets. They don't melt excess fat. They simply reduce most people's appetite, which causes them to eat less without being hungry, which causes them to reduce their calorie intake, which PRESTO! causes them to lose weight. Yep. They're just a diet in a syringe. (OK, well, in a pen, actually. But you know what I mean.) You might want ask your doctor if a diet in a syringe is right for you.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the coin:

Mendell from Washington, type 2, writes: I have an unusual problem — I need to gain weight. I've had type 2 since 2005 and lost weight as soon as I began my medications (Metformin & Glipizide), and then kept losing more weight over the next few years. I am now down to about 130 lbs. and am 5'9" tall. Not Good. Do you know of any products that are good nutrition that can help? It has to be sugar free, of course. And please do not respond by telling me, "You're so lucky to be thin . . ." I hear it all the time. (Sorry and my prayers go out to those who are trying to lose weight.)

Wil@Ask D'Mine answers: OK. I won't tell you that you are lucky to be thin, 'cause I'm not actually sure that you are. Well, more correctly, I'm not sure that you're too thin, anyway. Like I did with our first reader, I ran your BMI and got 19.2, which is towards the bottom end of the "normal" weight range, and thus not medically underweight.

But that said, if you think you're too thin, I guess that's good enough for me. And I'm here to help you fatten up. But first some myth busting: Your diet does not need to be sugar-free. Anyone with diabetes can have sugar, that whole "no sugar" thing is an urban myth like alligators in the sewer and spontaneous human combustion. Of course, some kinds of sugar are worse than others. You should avoid drinking sugar, for instance. Liquid sugars tend to out-pace even our best meds. But you absolutely can eat some sugar or stuff with sugar in it.

Still, don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating the Entenmann's Doughnut Diet to fatten you up....

As a side note, both your meds together are technically weight neutral, so I'd be willing to bet that your weight loss was due to changes in eating habits after you were diagnosed. It's got me wondering if fear of high blood sugar has you half-starving yourself to death. But that aside, you need to do the opposite of what our earlier reader has to do. You need to put more calories in the tank every day than you burn, so that you can gain weight. And you're 100% right, this is not as fun, or as easy, as it sounds for this simple reason: most really high calorie foods are hard on the blood sugar.

So to eat more, we need to look at how you eat now. If you eat three small meals a day, maybe we could add a fourth, or some snacks. Or maybe we can increase your portion sizes a little bit. We also need to look at high-calorie foods that are low on the glycemic index — foods that turn to sugar slowly in your body. Nuts and sunflower seeds come to mind as an example.

Of course, everything has a cost. Most foods that are high in calories and low in sugar tend to be high in fat. That'll be OK, unless your cholesterol is high. But check out this list here for more ideas (50 to be exact) for foods to fatten you up.

You know, what we really need is some sort of Star Trek technology to move extra fat from those who don't need it to those who do. But in the meantime, my prescription for you is to eat, drink, and be merry. In less moderation than you are doing now.

This is not a medical advice column. We are PWDs freely and openly sharing the wisdom of our collected experiences — our been-there-done-that knowledge from the trenches. But we are not MDs, RNs, NPs, PAs, CDEs, or partridges in pear trees. Bottom line: we are only a small part of your total prescription. You still need the professional advice, treatment, and care of a licensed medical professional.

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

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Ask D'Mine: When You Need Support, The "Where's Waldo" of Diabetes Care

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Ask D'Mine: When You Need Support, The "Where's Waldo" of Diabetes Care

You can't do diabetes alone, right? In this week's edition of our weekly diabetes advice column, Ask D'Mine, your host, Wil Dubois, (veteran type 1, diabetes author and community educator) delves into the importance of support from family and friends, and pushing your healthcare team to make sure you're getting the answers you need!

Need help navigating life with diabetes? Email us at AskDMine@diabetesmine.com

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Sheryl from North Carolina, type 2, writes: Throughout my life I was always thought to be "the strong one" by friends. While I loved being dependable, reliable and the "rock" when others needed help, what I lacked in my life was the option to be vulnerable and the ability to ask for and accept the help of others. My recent bout with diabetes has reinforced this need. There's probably no single answer to this question, but how do you ask for, and accept, the support and assistance of others? I'd just like to hear your thoughts.

Wil@Ask D'Mine answers: Actually, there is one single answer: Be humble. You ask for support and assistance by simply asking for it. Of course, it helps to ask the right people—more on that in a second. But you put your finger on the much harder issue, accepting the help of others, and I think this is especially true for people like you who have functioned as the "rock" for others.

But consider this: Being humble doesn't make you weak. Being humble doesn't change who you are. Being humble doesn't make you undependable or unreliable. We all need the support and assistance of others. We're social animals, after all. And being humble doesn't make you vulnerable, either. All it does is make you wise.

Actually, I think you're halfway there already. You yourself have admitted that you need the help of others. That's a big step. And while that can be true for life in general, it's doubly true for diabetes. Hey, diabetes is a team sport from top to bottom. You can't do this alone. Your doc has help from a wide variety of specialists, educators, nutritionists, exercise folks, dentists, eye docs, and maybe even a shrink. And you need your family and friends on board.

But your friends and family, while they need to be on board at least passively, may not actually be the best people to ask for support and assistance from, depending on their level of willingness and capacity for empathy. The very, very, very best people you can get support and assistance from are others of your own kind.

No one can understand diabetes better than another person who has it. When you reach out to another PWD, even if you don't know that person, you're not reaching out to a stranger. You're reaching out to someone who's walking in your shoes. Someone who understands you. Someone who "gets it." And most importantly, someone who loves you on the basis of your shared challenges.

The other advantage of reaching out to your own kind is that these new folks whom you share so much with don't know your reputation as "the strong one," or the "rock." You can afford to be vulnerable with them. You left your baggage at the door when you entered this new world.

There are lots of places you can find support, especially as a type 2—simply because there are so many more of you than there are of us type 1s. You can start with your doc. Ask if he or she knows of a good local support group. Or you can check in with (not into) your local hospital. Or your church. Or your chamber of commerce.

And if you live somewhere so obscure that you're the only person with type 2 diabetes, and I can't imagine where that would be... Ice Station Zebra?... then may I suggest the internet? We type 1s are great lovers of the internet because it's our home-away-from-home. We're the victims of a genetic diaspora. We're so few and so far spread out that in many places there aren't many of us around. Of course, while most places in the country have type 2 support groups, not everyone is comfortable connecting with other persons with diabetes in person in their own communities for any number of personal or professional reasons, so it's OK for you to connect with your own kind online instead.

One great place to start would be at our partner community Diabetic Connect. Or boot up a browser. Why, all you have to do is enter "diabetic support" into Google to get 41,900,00 hits. Oh. Wait a minute. 40,900,000 of those are for diabetic support socks. Oops. Most of us don't actually need those, but that's a topic for another day.

So, I think you're off to a great start. Admitting that you need support and assistance took strength. Taking that first step to reach out to others will take strength, too.

But I know you can do it. Because you're still the rock.

Mark from Indiana, probable person with pre-diabetes (new designation? A PPWPD?), asks: Is a blood sugar of 250 right after a meal normal? I'm not sure I have diabetes, I had blood labs done and my blood sugar was 175, but could not remember if I ate before the test. So I bought a meter to monitor my blood sugar. Oh, and my blood sugar drops back down again after two hours.

Wil@Ask D'Mine answers: Ummmm... No. Not normal. But how abnormal is an open question, because where your blood sugar be should right after a meal is like one of those "where's Waldo" games (trying to find a needle in a haystack). No one really knows, because for the last umpteen years, the medical research types have been looking for Waldo two hours after a meal, not right after it.

But maybe we can ferret an answer out for you by reading between the lines.

Back in the bad old days, like three years ago, we used blood sugar numbers to diagnose diabetes. Now, we use A1C scores instead. But when we still used fingersticks for diagnosing, this was how the game was played: If you had a fasting fingerstick above 126 mg/dL on two different days, you had diabetes, and we gave you a meter and your official "I have diabetes" T-shirt. Welcome to the club!

Or... if you had two random fingersticks above 200 mg/dL you got the meter and the T-shirt. Random simply meant not fasting, but was generally viewed as two hours after eating. Even further back in the past, diabetes was diagnosed using oral glucose tolerance tests where blood sugar was measured precisely two hours after drinking medical Kool-Aid.

Meanwhile, if you had two fasting fingersticks between 100-125 you had pre-diabetes, which is sort of like being a little bit pregnant. You also had pre-diabetes if you had two random fingersticks between 140 and 199. Remember, 200 and over with random readings, and you had the Big D. Oh, and if your random was under 140 you were assumed to be "normal."

There were any number of problems with this system, not the least of which was once you had the first 200+ reading, convincing the potential new inductee to our club to come back for the confirming fingerstick was problematic at best. All-in-all, using the A1C is simpler and a slam dunk. The A1C test isn't affected by the Big Gulp the patient drank in the clinic parking lot, meter accuracy, or unusual stress on a given day because A1C measures the average glucose environment of your blood for the past three months. The other good thing about using A1C to diagnose is not having to keep track of all those numbers we just went though. The threshold for diagnosis of diabetes is a single A1C number of 6.5, at which point your average BGL has been 140 for months.

There's than 140 again.

Why? How did 140 get chosen, you ask? You might not really want to know, but it was chosen by expert Consensus Panels again. Actually, as reported by Dr. David M. Nathan, et al, in the ADA's look at postprandial glucose readings, most research into the subject has shown that in non-dFolk, glucose peaks about 60 minutes after eating, rarely goes above 140 mg/dL, and usually returns to fasting levels in 2-3 hours. So if you are still at or over 140 two hours after eating, something is amiss!

About. Rarely. Usually. That's a lot of qualifying words.

Well, in no human endeavor can your mileage vary more than when eating. What did you eat? How fast did you eat it? What time of day did you eat it? How long was it since your most recent meal? And so on and so forth.

Still, if non-dFolk usually peak at no more than 140 about an hour downstream of a meal, and you are hitting a 250 right after eating, it does appear that something is eff'd up. Big time. If you're seeing a 250 right after a meal more than once it would suggest you do have the Big D. That's based on the fact that you shouldn't even peak for about an hour. If you're already at 250 right after eating, you will go even higher. What size T-shirt do you wear, Mark?

It's interesting, however, that your body rallies and your blood sugar comes back down by the two-hour point. Something is eff'd up, alright, but something's working right, too. As to your 175 on your labs, well, if you were fasting, again, that would suggest the Big D. But if you'd eaten that day, it would suggest pre-D.

You should probably hook up with your doc again (not in that way) and just get the damn A1C test run to resolve this once and for all, but in the meantime you can have some fun with that meter your bought. Use it to embark on a voyage of self-discovery. Test regularly at bed time and the next morning and see if your blood sugar goes up, down, or stays level overnight. Test before you eat various meals and at the magic two hours after the first bite to see how much a change there is.

Let us know what you discover!

This is not a medical advice column. We are PWDs freely and openly sharing the wisdom of our collected experiences — our been-there-done-that knowledge from the trenches. But we are not MDs, RNs, NPs, PAs, CDEs, or partridges in pear trees. Bottom line: we are only a small part of your total prescription. You still need the professional advice, treatment, and care of a licensed medical professional.

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

Type 2 Diabetes Treatment Type 2 Diabetes Diet Diabetes Destroyer Reviews Original Article